Sibby's War
by SerenityBlaidd
Summary: 'Muggle' Sibby is adopted by a mysterious wizard, falls in love with doomed Death Eater, Evan Rosier, and is recruited by Sirius Black to fight Voldemort. (This actually sounds vastly better than it actually is - but it was the first HP fanfic I ever wrote so, shamelessly, it needs to live here) - updated whenever I get more of it off my old computer.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling.**

**This story begins in the autumn term of 1978. **

.

Rain bucketed out of the sky.

The Quidditch pitch was slick, grass flattened into the glistening mud. The high wooden stands, which stretching above the oval of grass, creaked in the icy wind. The canvas banners that hung wetly from them, flapped and strained like sails, keen to carry the stadium away, or rip it to pieces.

.

It was the sort of weather insane people would spend trying out for a team, and today the insane ones were the Slytherins.

.

Sibby Wilkes was watching them from the minimal shelter at the base of one of the high wooden stands. Wet fabric flapped against her damp robes, but she didn't seem to have noticed. Her best friend, Charity Burbage watched with narrowed green eyes that made her look more like a cat than usual. '...Come and help me get this moss." She snapped. Sibby turned slowly, her eyes were the last part of her to leave the field. It took her a moment to find Charity's irritated scowl.

.

"…Say what?" She asked.

"The moss. The _Purple Sink-Hex Moss_!" Charity mimicked the enthusiasm Sibby had announced its discovery with. "The amazing make-the-best-motion-potion-ever Moss."

"...Slughorn will like it." Sibby said, looking back at the gap in the cloth.

"He'd better." Charity assured her.

.

Potions class made her feel sick inside. Professor Slughorn only liked purebloods, potions genius's and Sytherins. Anyone who didn't have a wizarding family tree more inbred than a pedigree dog was ignored. The poor, the shy, pretty much everyone. She shoved a handful of the strange speckled moss into her bag and rubbed her hands clean on her robes, wondering what Sibby was thinking. The sounds of the Quidditch players drifted in gusts, like the rain. She imagined them bedraggled. Hair pressed against their heads, cheeks red raw from the weather.

.

The Slytherin Quidditch team were an elite bunch. All rich, skill-full, and well-born. They green robes were trimmed with silver and their brooms had silver metal snake coiled along them. They were not being very nice to their hopeful housemates, and perhaps that was what kept Sibby watching them. Charity shivered again, and then she squealed in fright as one of the Slytherin Beaters yanked the cloth open and lunged at her.

.

Frantically Charity shoved Sibby head-first out the far side of the stand, and the two girls found themselves sprawled on the muddy field, at the foot of what felt like half of Slytherin House.

.

"Spies!" The other Beater snarled, brandishing his bat at the two girls.

"We are not spies!" Charity yelled, tripping on her robes as she tried to stand up. "We don't even like Quidditch!"

.

The circle of Slytherins closed ranks. Charity finally managed to stop slipping about, and pulled herself up to her full height. Sibby hadn't even tried to get up, and was watching them with a distracted look that Charity really hoped meant she was summoning up some brilliant charm. Both Beaters looked like they were about to do some beating. "...We're not spies." Charity said again. "We just came for a walk."


	2. Chapter 2

Morgan Rosier, the Slytherin Captain, slid his wand out from beneath his robes, considering them both with a silky smile. "Get her on her feet." He suggested, quietly. "And I'll show you how I deal with spies."

"You can't do anything to us." Charity warned him. "We weren't doing anything. And we weren't spying!"

"Going for a walk in this, were you?" One of the other Slytherins jeered, gesturing up at the filthy weather.

"And she isn't really your cousin." The Seeker added, nastily. "She isn't even a Wilkes. She's some dirty Mudblood."

"…Muddy Mudblood." One of the Beaters added, with a deep chuckle that was taken up, around the circle.

.

Sibby chose this moment to get up. She hadn't been working on some super hex. She had been, Charity concluded miserably, lost in thought. There was mud on her robes and on her cheek. "…We weren't spying on you." She said, looking up into Morgan's grey eyes without any hint that she'd noticed how bad the situation was. "We were collecting Purple Sink-Hex Moss. There's was a tiny bit growing beneath the stands."

.

The Slytherins considered the statement in bemused silence, waiting for some signal from Morgan to do something horrible. But Morgan himself hesitated.

.

"What's Purple Sink-Hex Moss?" Morgan's brother, Evan asked. Evan Rosier was in their year and presumably trying out for a place on the Slytherin team.

"...It makes broom's super-fast." One of them explained, quickly.

"…It's very rare." Someone else added.

.

"That's what we were doing." Sibby concluded. She looked at Morgan, waiting for him to respond, although he didn't. He nodded to two Slytherins to check the base of the stands, and then he flicked his wand and summoned Charity's bag, taking the moss out, thoughtfully.

.

"...Tell Frankie next time he sends spies, I'll set my Beaters on them." He said, and marched off, with the bag of moss, and his team, following. Charity took Sibby back to their Common Room, cold, muddy, shaken-up, but actually suspecting they had gotten off lightly.


	3. Chapter 3

Potions class was taking in a dark classroom, cramped with ingredients cupboards, books, cauldrons, and endless shelves of dusty glass bottles. The floor, walls and low ceiling her all sticky from an uncountable number of splashes, and explosions. It smelt of the mixed residue from endless potion work, and a complete lack of ventilation. The classroom was at the top of the old dungeons, the only window a grimy slit along the ceiling's edge. None of the students had ever seen it open.

.

Professor Slughorn was, like his classroom, rather creepy. His robes smelt rather unpleasantly of the room where he taught and his shiny red face was rather too friendly, as were his chubby hands.

.

"Motion Potions." He began, cracking his knuckles, noisily. "I hope you have all collected some interesting ingredients. Cauldron's have been boiling for one day and one night. Four students to a cauldron..." He unrolled a parchment on which he had allocated them groups. Charity held her breath until her own and Sibby's names had been called, and scurried to her side. Potions Class was always taken with Slytherins, and Evan Rosier and Utred Wilkes joined them at the cauldron, lips pressed thinly together, eyes on the distance.

.

"Did you bring any Purple Sink-Hex Moss?" Sibby asked. Evan had been studying the grey slit of a window. Charity didn't say anything, although it was beyond her how Sibby could ask it like that, as if Evan's brother hadn't stolen the stuff from them before threatening them with Beater bats. And he had called her a Mudblood. For that matter, Charity didn't even know how the Slytherins could have found out that Sibby had been adopted by Wilkes.

.

Evan Rosier looked down his narrow nose at her. He had the same narrow nose and grey eyes as his brother, and the same slightly floppy brown hair. The same as his fathers, for that matter. But probably his mother too considering how inbred all those purebloods were, Charity thought, allowing herself a small smile at her private joke.

.

Evan tipped the Purple Stink-Hex Moss out of his bag without speaking. It was a fine powder now, dried and well ground. Sibby picked a pinch, rubbing it between her fingers. "...You ground this finely." She concluded. She sounded pleased, although she glanced up at him with just a hint of caution, and to Charity's surprise, a definite smile. Evan stared at her, for a good minute, but then to Charity's complete surprise he nodded.

"...My brother did it." He told her, shortly. "Prepared it."


	4. Chapter 4

Ch.4

"We can't add it until we have a rolling boil." Wilkes told Evan, ignoring the two girls completely. Charity emptied her own supplies onto the desk and they started to pull the potion together. Charity didn't do anything because she knew she would mess it up. Sibby was good at potions mostly, but the Slytherin boys didn't want her help. Charity thought Evan and Wilkes were good at potions themselves. Probably because they stole other people's ingredients,

.

"_I'm sorry_." Evan said. It was a such a random statement. He had addressed the bubbling cauldron, and Charity glanced at him and at Sibby uncertainly. Wilkes had gone for a crystal vial and Evan went back to stirring the orange potion.

.

"...I was collecting the moss for this practical." Sibby said, softly. She looked over at him, uneasily. Evan drew his frown up from the rhythmically popping bubbles. He looked at her, very slowly. Charity stopped tapping her quill, in surprise.

.

"No. I'm not apologising for my brother. I'm sorry I said about your parentage." Evan clarified. He actually meant it as well, Charity was sure. Although why he would possibly be sorry, and how he'd known in the first place, were complete mysteries.

.

"That means a lot to me." Sibby said, softly. Evan didn't say anything else but he looked, Charity thought, like he was going to.

.

"...Oh, so sorry, Rosier." Eric Wood said, dropping a fistful of blue powder into the cauldron. "Wasn't that 'clumsy and stupid' of me?"

"_You idiot_!" Evan cursed angrily, sweeping the top of the potion, as he frantically tried to stop the powder mixing in.

"I'm Hufflepuff." Eric offered in mock explanation. "You know what we're like. Clumsy and stupid, Rosier. What can you do?"

.

"That was our potion too, Eric!" Lucy hissed at him, appalled. "You idiot!" Eric glanced at her for a moment, but then he turned back to enjoy Evan and Wilkes, desperately trying to save their orange gloop.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch.5

"Sorry about messing your grades." Eric said, as soon as he could catch Charity on her own. "Slytherins always slip something stupid in my potions. They really needed paying back."

"They stole that Purple Stink Moss from us in the first place." Charity told him, swinging her bag over her shoulder as they walked together up the corridor. She wasn't really annoyed. Despite the blue powder turning the orange potion dog-poo brown, it had still worked well and got her her highest ever Potions grade.

.

"…Evan Rosier's been putting it about that Sibby is an adopted Mudblood." Charity told him. "He deserved it."

"Is that true?" Eric asked, surprised. "Sibby's not really a fancy old Wilkes?" Charity flashed him a reproachful look, although she knew Eric wouldn't care, or tell anyone.

"It's true." She told him. "Evan's told the whole Slytherin Quidditch team, so it's going to be common knowledge anyway."

"She's so sweet." Eric pointed out. "It kind of made me feel a bit angry, seeing her looking all impressed with Rosier's potion brewing, back there."

.

Charity ignored him, folding her arms across her chest. "…Sibby is so trusting and kind." He added, still thinking about it.

"Do you want to ask her to the Yule Ball?" Charity suggested, crossly. Eric's laugh was decidedly nervous.

"No." He said. "I thought... Actually, I was… I thought, if no one's asked you already..."

.

Charity breathed a sigh of relief, her smile returning as she started back up the corridor.

"That's not very romantic." She complained, which made him laugh again. "But yes."

"I'll do it again and I'll make it romantic." He promised, and hurried off to Divination.

.

Maybe people were whispering about Sibby being adopted. Maybe she was worried that they were. Maybe she was daydreaming about swimming in a sea of boiled candy with a family of talking Kappas. Charity had no idea, but she was getting a bit sick of suggesting stuff for the Ball and being completely ignored.

.

They'd both picked at dinner, and Charity was relieved to see Eric brandishing a box of Singing Butterfly Chocolates, as she scrambled through the barrel entrance to the Common Room.

.

"…They're so pretty!" Sibby exclaimed, as they all watched the chocolate butterflies flapping tunefully about the room.

"I'd really like it if you'd come to the Ball with me, Charity." Eric said. "Will you?" Charity laughed

"That is_ so much_ better!" She assured him and Eric hugged her very pleased with himself.

.

"We could all go together." Eric's best friend Orion suggested. "The four of us. If that's okay with you, Sibby?"

"Oh, yes, of course." Sibby said, distracted by Charity's shriek of excitement, and the fluttering chocolate.

"Thanks." Orion said. He smiled at her, slightly shyly, before taking himself back to his homework.

.

Orion was tall and handsome, with shiny black hair and golden brown eyes. He was one of those students that could have gone into any house. Clever enough for Ravenclaw, brave enough for Gryffindor and well-born enough for Slytherin. But the Sorting Hat had ushered him into Hufflepuff, where he would undoubtedly become Head of House and Captain of the Quidditch team.

.

It seemed unlikely that he should have felt shy about asking Sibby to the Yule Ball and Charity secretly wondered if he had done it out of kindness, because his own family had always been close to the Wilkes's. Maybe he wanted to show he didn't care about her not being the blood descendent everyone had assumed.

**AN: Can you tell they're all in Hufflepuff? I wanted them to all be their own people, but for their Hufflepuff nature to shine through.**


	6. Chapter 6

Not for the first time Charity wondered what had possessed Helga Hufflepuff to make the entrance to her Common Room through a barrel in the kitchen corridor. She scrambled up off her hands and knees, glaring at Evan Rosier who was standing by the opposite wall watching, and almost certainly wondering the same thing. He turned to study the kitchen's closed door with a scowl as he waited for Sibby to follow her out and clamber gracelessly to her feet.

.

"What do you want?" Charity asked, feeling cocky because Evan was alone in the Hufflepuff corridor. "Come to steal something else, for your thief of a brother?" Evan consider it without stooping to respond. Charity interlocked her arm with Sibby's. She couldn't help thinking about Eric saying how sweet and trusting Sibby was and that she'd looked impressed by Evan's apparently sincere apology. "…Come on, Sibby." She added, firmly.

.

Sibby didn't 'come on'. She turned back to Evan, getting her arm free. "Are you alright?" She asked. Sibby always managed to sound really genuine, like Evan Rosier might be snooping around the Hufflepuff corridor for a really good reason, something that he might need assistance with.

"Looking for more private secrets to blab to everyone?" Charity suggested. Evan's eyes grazed her again with that look of contemptuous disgust. Ignoring her he headed over to Sibby.

.

"I just wondered who you were going to the Yule Ball with." He said quietly. Charity laughed out loud.

"_As if_!" She exclaimed, before she could stop herself. "Do you remember what you called her, Rosier?"

"I didn't call you anything." Evan said to Sibby, still pretending that Charity didn't exist.

"I know." Sibby assured him. "It doesn't matter."

"Is Orion Le Fey taking you to the Ball?" Evan asked instead, although he obviously already knew.

.

_How do you know that_, Charity felt like demanding. _Who even spoke to the Slytherins, to tell them things like that_?

.

"Orion asked me last night." Sibby told Evan. "Do you know him?" Evan nodded. He didn't seem upset about it, which Charity had been really hoping he would. He nodded again, thinking about it for a moment, before dismissing them from his attention and heading back up into the main castle.

.

"...Actually I think his pure-blood has made him a bit mental." Charity observed, diving back into the barrel. "...Evan Rosier is mental, Eric!" She announced, finding him chatting to Orion. Orion was wearing his black and yellow Quidditch robes. Charity wished Eric was on the Quidditch team, because that kit looked so great. "...Evan just asked Sybie to the Ball!" She explained, pulling her attention back to Eric.

"I hope you told him where to go." Eric said to Sibby, who'd drifted behind Charity, into the Common Room.

.

"He wasn't asking me to go with him." Sibby clarified.

"His father would disown him, if he did." Orion said, mildly amused. "Besides, those Slytherins are all coupled up before their born. Lucky sods. They don't have to ask girls out." He looked over at Sibby fondly. "Let's see if I can't beat some decency into him, on the Quidditch pitch." He laughed.

.

"_Evan_ Rosier is on the Quidditch team?" Eric asked in surprise. "Lucky you. Although I think it'll take more than a wooden bat to beat some decency into him."

"Yeah, I do to." Orion agreed. "Might be able to smack that smirk off his stuck-up little face though..." He paused seeing that Sibby turned and taken herself straight back to the barrel exit.

.

"Let's go, Le Fey!" Frankie yelled over, fastening his Captain's Band around his arm.

"I'll meet you on the pitch." Orion said, hurrying after Sibby.

"No prob." Frankie patted his arm as the rest of his team scrambled through the barrel exit.


	7. Chapter 7

"How did _you_ manage to get into Hufflepuff?!" Sibby demanded, her voice sharp with anger. Orion waited, meekly, his team and the whole game, waiting for him on the pitch outside. "…Do you think it's funny to joke about hitting people with Beater bats?"

"A bit." Orion said, smiling at her anger. "When it's Evan Rosier… I've never seen you lose your rag before, Sibby. Have you ever thought of trying out as a Beater?"

"_I thought you were better than that_!" Sibby exploded. Orion paused, considering because in all honesty he hadn't thought that Sibby really _thought_ about what he was like at all really, except that hopefully she thought he was handsome and that he was good at Quidditch.

.

"...I'm glad you think about me." He told her, quietly. "And the Sorting Hat never hesitated when it put me in Hufflepuff, Sibby. I always play a clean decent game."

"Well, that was an ugly joke." Sibby told him. _But not as ugly as Evan's face would be after a quick punt from a bludger_, Orion thought. He kept it to himself and gave her a quick hug before legging it, as quickly as he could, to the waiting game.

.

The team was already on the pitch. Frankie rolled his eyes at Orion, as he ran to join them. The Madame Hooch blew her whistle and the teams rose into the air. Slytherin had already won the championship, on points, and the match would only decide whether Hufflepuff or Gryffindor took second place.

.

.

Charity and Eric had saved Sibby a place in the stands, they watched her squeezing through the press of excited students grimly.

.

Orion and Evan had already, _literally_, smashed into each other, ensnaring their brooms mid-air, _twice_. Both were already bleeding and the Slytherin stands were on their feet, howling for more bloody revenge.

.

Madame Hooch, refereeing from the air, was beside herself, blowing her whistle repeatedly with angry bafflement at the ferocity with which the players were now _all_ playing.

.

.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tended to produce Quidditch 'Champions', solo plays of stunning brilliance, to win their matches for them. While Slytherin and Hufflepuff both played close-knit team games.

.

The Hufflepuff's were famous for standing by each other and always put their team before their personal egos.

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And the Slytherin team were almost all related. Evan's brother, Morgan, was their Captain. Their cousin Lucas was a Beater. The other Beater and the Keeper were brothers. They were also used to having to stick together against all three of the other houses.

.

Now they were united in their desire to inflict as much violence on the Hufflepuffers as they could.

.

Hufflepuff was the vastly weaker team, and they were working hard just to cover each others backs from violent assault for most of the first half.

.

Sibby had recounted Orion's assurances that he always played a clean and decent game, increasingly desperately, as they had all watched the game descend into a battle of bone-jarring, pointless violence. They all believed Orion had meant it, when he'd said it. But by the second half the Hufflepuffs were forced, or enraged enough, to retaliate and the violence escalated tenfold.

.

The Slytherin Seeker finally captured the snitch, swooping down to slam the golden ball directly into Frankie's face, which made the Hufflepuff Captain the fifth player of the match to be sent to the hospital wing.

.

Slytherin had won the match and the House Cup, although the sheer number of penalties they had given away had given Hufflepuff more points than Gryffindor, breaking the tie and putting them in second place in the Championship. Both houses left the field feeling like they'd fought a hard battle and essentially won.

.

.

Orion crawled through the barrel on his hands and knees, still holding an icepack to an impressively bruised face. He eyed Sibby uncertainly but got no opportunity to tell if she was annoyed about the fighting during the match as he was accosted by his enthusiastic team mates. Hopefully even Sibby realised the Slytherins had all been completely mental. Everyone else seemed to realise it and were just jubilant that they had stood as a team _and_ got the points to put themselves in second place. They had achieved everything from the game they could possibly have hoped for and he was heavily mugged as a hero. Sibby gave him a smile from across the room, but she didn't fling her arms around him and kiss his poor wounded face.

.

"They're ruthless and mental." He complained to Eric instead, when everyone had calmed down, and he could get some peace. 'Did you see what they were like?"

"I saw you elbow Evan Rosier in the face." Eric said, cheerfully.

"They were all _mental_." Orion complained. "And he did deserved that. He had it in for me the whole game. Thank God they didn't make him a Beater."

.

"What did Sybie say?" Orion asked, glancing over at the girl's dorm, which was quiet now.

"Not much." Eric admitted. "She was gripping the rail the whole time. She was a bit white. I don't think she liked it much."

"It was impossible to play properly." Orion complained. He really had wanted to impress Sibby with some fantastic moves and some textbook fair play. "Slytherins just wanted to fight." He sighed, glumly.


	8. Chapter 8

"You look beautiful." Sibby said. Charity flashed her an anxious grin. They had their dress robes on for the Yule Ball, and everything else was packed or shoved into their trunks.

.

"…Orion will be wearing his Quidditch robes." Charity said, glancing at the door to see if he and Eric were in the Common Room, although it was packed and impossible to tell. Everyone looked very different dressed up.

.

Charity's dress robes were black with embroidered birds and cats. They were, if she did say so herself, _stunning_.

.

The golden thread was a perfect match for her own golden blond curls, and they'd cost a small fortune. She'd had them fitted in Diagon Alley in August and this was the first chance she'd had to show them off. She so wished Eric was on the Quidditch team. Then they would match so well then.

.

She flashed Sibby a wistful grin. Sibby was pretty and lovely and that was very lucky because her dress robes were bile-vomit yellow. They were the ugliest dress robes Charity had ever seen. She'd offered to try and 'fix them up a bit' twice now, and she didn't want to upset Sibby by pushing it.

.

"The Ball _has_ started." Orion put his head of silky black hair into the girl's dorm and flashed them a white toothed grin. Orion looked _great_ in his Quidditch robes. So great that it obviously showed on Charity's face as Eric gave her a very dark look and stomped off to the barrel exit alone.

.

"Orion's face looks really sore." Sibby said, scrambling out of the barrel and brushing her knees clean. "We were just saying," She said to Eric. "…that maybe he should go back to the hospital wing?"

"I'm alright." Orion assured her, crawling out last, very pleased that she was worried about him.

.

Eric concluded that this must have been why Charity had been staring at Orion. He stopped being sulky and put his arm around her waist. And Charity flashed her friend a 'thank you' smile, wondering how Sibby could know what to say to Eric to explain away her staring at Orion, when most of the time Sibby didn't even seem to notice what class they were in.

.

.

Evan Rosier was also sporting a black eye. It clashed impressively with his expensive robes. He had those traditional wizarding gloves and black leather boots that all the Slytherins wore. They all had expensive dress robes. The girl's were especially lavish and beautiful. Three of the boys were also wearing purple bruises, from the previous days Quidditch Match, against the 'gentle and decent' Hufflepuffs.

.

Orion noticed Sibby looking at the purple bruises. He wasn't sure how intentional his elbow smashing into Evan's face had looked, from the stands. But hopefully it had been obvious how relentlessly Evan, and his cronies, had been attacking any Hufflepuff player they could get at.

.

.

Evan Rosier watched them come in, his grey eyes expressionless, his lips tightened into their usual sneer. He was with his girlfriend, Violet Greengrass, who was beautiful but equally sneery, with a sheet of white blond hair, which she flicked about a lot, often in Evan's face. Orion hoped that was actually quite annoying. He touched a bit of Sibby's hair, which was loose from its clasp, and then checked nervously to see if she minded. "Your hair looks very nice." He told her.

"Charity did it." She sounded like she might still be cross about the Quidditch match.

.

There was a lot of dancing. The House Elves carried trays of food and drinks about the room, and enchanted harps played music, first lively, and then gentle, romantic pieces, as the enchanted ceiling darkened over their heads.

.

Sibby was standing in the caretaker's corridor, sipping a drink. This surprised Evan slightly as he had been watching her all night, and she had never moved far from the top left corner of the Great Hall, where Orion Le Fey, her Mudblood friend, Charity Burbage, and Eric Wood stayed with her, dancing and laughing.

.

He hadn't seen her cross the hall or seen her get past him, for that matter. He checked again that she was just standing there, alone, and then he told Violet to wait for him and wandered over to her, expecting Orion to show up beside her at any minute.

.

He didn't actually know what to say to her. Orion didn't suddenly show up an nothing sprung to mind as he walked over. She was wearing yellow dress robes. He didn't know if that was to match her boyfriends Quidditch robes or just because she loved her house. Either way they were pretty horrible. Horrible enough to make him smile again. For no reason at all he wondered what she would look like in decent robes, like Violets.


	9. Chapter 9

Sibby watched him coming over. A House Elf pressed a glass into his hand. He still hadn't thought of anything to say. She didn't say anything either. But she did smile. She took another sip of her drink, looking again at the cool dark evening outside the door.

.

_Don't say anything about the Quidditch match_, he concluded, although he couldn't think of anything else. He had actually played brilliantly. He was sure she didn't realise that. And while he had, admittedly, whipped his entire team into a violent frenzy, he hadn't actually, personally, inflicted any of the serious injuries to her team. _Don't talk about Quidditch_, he thought again. It was actually all he'd talked about since the whistle had blown.

.

She'd had her sissy boyfriend complaining about his broken nose and swollen eye all evening, trying to make her feel sorry for him. Evan had been watching Sibby feeling so sorry for him for quite a long time.

.

"...Your girlfriend is really beautiful." Sibby said, randomly. Evan glanced back into the hall, where he could just see Violet talking to her friends.

"Yes, she is." He agreed. Sibby was pretty. Her dress robes were actually comically awful though.

.

"…You were selected for the Quidditch team." She added. She actually sounded quite please for him, which he knew she wasn't. That made him regarded her, suspiciously,

"Yes. For _my_ Quidditch team." He said.

"I don't know anything about Quidditch." She assured him, turning away from the dancers in the hall to find his face. "…But I know you were fantastic."

.

Evan blushed, which was mortifying. Sibby smiled, obviously having noticed. "…Everyone saw that you were fantastic. It was your first game."

"That's what they're saying in the Hufflepuff Common Room, is it?" Evan asked, recovering a bit.

"That's what they're thinking. The whole school, I think."

"How would you know what other houses think?" Evan asked, trying to get his head around this.

"I get on with everyone." Sibby pointed out. She took another sip of her drink. "And you might be terrible, next time you play." She added. And that was very true, Evan knew.

.

Sibby smiled. He was pretty sure that she was smiling at the daftness of Quidditch. Evan didn't think Quidditch was in anyway daft, but considering that he might be terrible next time he played, there was something rather reassuring in her thinking it was daft. And she thought he was 'fantastic'. She thought everyone thought he was fantastic.

.

"...Does it hurt?" She asked. She thought he was fantastic. He had no idea what 'it' was, to judge whether it would hurt for her, or not.

"I'm sorry, does what hurt?" He asked.

"Your cheek. Your eye." She said.

"No. I gave out worse…" He wanted to bite back the words, because he knew that would go down like a dragon on a hexed broom, but he didn't have it in him, so he studied her, waiting for her to huff her Hufflepuff wussy-ness at him.

.

Waiting for that reminded him how he'd expected her to be when he'd told everyone about her not being a Wilkes… He hadn't told everyone. He'd told Amycus. But he wished he hadn't. He didn't know why she'd been nice to him after that. Although he didn't know why she was nice to him, at all. And if he wanted her to be sorry for the way he played Qudditch, then she could keep wanting.

.

They had been silent for a while. He could actually see Charity Burbage looking around for her. Charity hadn't spotted them, and Sibby hadn't noticed, but he could feel the seconds ticking away until they were interrupted.

.

"…He shouldn't have hit you." Sibby had just said. Evan lifted his shoulders. He didn't know they were still on that subject. Frankly, they'd been playing Quidditch with the entire school watching. They were all playing to win, so Evan should have predicted and avoided Orion's assault.

.

"It's fine... Who knew Le Fey had it in him?" He added. He was wondering which of her friends was going to come over to interrupt them first. Charity and Eric were either side of the hall, so he was expecting it to be Orion. He didn't want it to be Orion.

.

"Wow!" It was Violet. She was blocking out most of the light, studying them both, an arm on either side of the door frame. "...I can honestly say that those are the _absolutely_ _foulest_ dress-robes I have ever seen. Do you think she's trying to be ironic?"

.

Evan didn't say anything. "Is that actual vomit stains?" Violet suggested, grinning at his lack of amusement. "Oh, maybe Hufflepuff has soiled herself and rolled in it. It's not a curtain, is it, Hufflepuff?"

"I don't want to do this now." Evan snapped, his voice taut with annoyance.

.

Violet had known Evan since they were toddlers, so she noticed the change of tone at once. He sounded like his father, his father annoyed.

"Well good." She assured him. "Because I can actually think of more amusing ways to end the Yule Ball than in a damp corridor with the school idiot."

"Good." Evan said, and he followed her back into the Grand Hall.


	10. Chapter 10

Violet was sulking over something. Evan was trying to decide if she would be any angrier if he left her for five minutes. It probably would make her actually crosser. But he still might actually do it. He was sure Sibby was actually upset and as far as he could tell, still on her own.

.

Finally Orion re-appeared with his arm around her waist and her head against his shoulder. Violet laughed loudly, as they went past. Evan sighed at her and she poked him in the ribs. "You're very serious, tonight." She mocked, her mouth against his ear. "You think you're so grown up, don't you, Evan?" She laughed again, slightly too loudly but then she pressed her lips over his mouth and kissed him, grinning at him, delightedly, when they pulled apart.

.

.

Charity had assured Orion that Sibby was crazy about him and had probably wandered off in a 'day-dream' way, rather than a 'desperate-to-escape-from-you' sort of way.

.

Orion had still been pretty sure that he'd been dumped. He was so utterly relieved to find Sibby tearstained and obviously not just avoiding him that he'd forgotten to properly find out why she'd been so upset. The best he could establish was that someone had laughed at her bright yellow dress robes. He had suggested boring people might be expected to respond like that, and assured her that he thought she looked lovely. They had spent the rest of the night dancing, and had kissed in the quiet Common Room before heading to their separate dorms.

.

He was reasonably certain that he could now call her his girlfriend. Having a girlfriend over Christmas would be great. He could buy her some dress robes she liked. She could buy him something sweet. It would be great.

.

.

The Hogswart Express was waiting in the station. It was a sunny day, although the clock in the Hufflepuff Common Room had told them to expect snow.

.

"Slytherins always have warm clothes." Charity observed, scowling at the cluster of Slytherin students, waiting at the front of the platform, mostly dressed in fur capes of silver or black, and thick velvet robes, in their house colours.

"They have to warm their icy hearts." Eric laughed. "And they dress like Bond film bad guys." He added, smiling at Morgan Rosier, who studied him with contempt. "…You'd know, if you watched telly, Orion. I've watched telly. It's weird."

.

Sibby shivered, quietly, gazing at the ancient stone slabs that made up the platform. "...Morgan Rosier has a ring with a _skull_ on it." Eric added, laughing. "Who buys a ring with a skull on it?"

.

They all turned to study Morgan's skull ring. It was quite big, with jewels for eyes. "…That's a curse ring." Orion said, frowning at Morgan. "They were banned a couple of years ago. He shouldn't have it at school."

"He shouldn't have it _at all_." Sibby said. Orion nodded, worried that she looked so miserable, and tooth-chatteringly cold.

.

Evan Rosier, who was waiting for the train near his brother, had just unbuckled his fancy cloak, that was probably fastened with a silver skull to match his brothers ring, and flung it around his girlfriend's shoulders. Violet waited impatiently for him to do so without thanking or asking. Orion was sure Evan had meant him to see, as if he'd done it on purpose, to make some sort of point. Sibby, hopefully not in league with Evan in the same game, wrapped her arms more firmly around her school robes, as a sudden gust of wind whipped across the platform.

.

"Would you like my cloak?" Orion suggested, quietly. Sibby looked at him, surprised.

"You don't need to do that." She said, shaking her head. "I'm fine."

"Feel free to offer me yours." Charity told Eric, prodding him. Eric just laughed.

"I'd freeze." He pointed out. "You've got a jumper under your robes... Fine!" He added, handing it over, with a great deal of mock grudge.

.

"There's is a curtain over there, that you could wear, Mudblood." Violet Greengrass said, noticing what they were doing. Sibby looked back at her in silence, pressing her teeth together, to stop them chattering. Orion took off his cloak and wrapped it around her hunched shoulders, using himself to block Violet from view. "Why haven't you got a 'colt', Mudblood?" Violet suggested, moving so she could see Sibby again.

.

"Ignore her." Charity said, coming to stand next to her. "She's only proving what a nasty cow she is."

"Still pretending to be a Wilkes, Mudblood?" Violet asked, angrily. The Slytherins all moved closer, Morgan stopped talking and came to stand beside his brother.

.

"Tell your nasty girlfriend to shut her mouth, before someone shuts it for her, Rosier!" Jasmine Bow, the Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team came over to join them, bringing half the Gryffindor Quidditch team with her.

"_Make her_." Evan suggested, taking his wand from beneath his robes. His older brother did like-wise. More than a dozen other pupils drew theirs. Yet more pupils looked round, hopeful for a professor to intervene. There were none on the platform, and the Slytherin to Gryffindor standoff remained, neither willing to put their wands down first.

.

"...I am a Wilkes." Sibby offered, uneasily. "…The train carriages don't have curtains. And Muggles wear 'coats', not 'colts'. A colt is a baby horse." Jasmine Bow laughed at Violets mistake, without the faintest idea what a coat might be.

.

"...I've got a coat." One of their fellow Hufflepuffs added. "It's got a zip, and everything.' The train puffed happily into the station behind the stiff students with their raised wands. It gave a friendly double blast of its whistle and stopped in a cloud of steam.

.

"..._worse than Muggles_..." Morgan said, his lip wrinkled into a sneer, but the rest of his statement was lost and he was first to put his wand away, and board the train. The rest of the young witches and wizards followed suit, hurrying to find compartments.


	11. Chapter 11

"What is your house like?" Charity demanded, making herself comfy on one of the cushiony seats, at Sibby's side. She was trying to take Sibby's mind off it, although Eric and Orion didn't help, watching the compartment door, in case the Slytherins intended to cause more trouble. Sibby was still shivering and she looked pale, and maybe like she hadn't heard. Orion wanted to put his arm around her, but didn't know it that was a bit too full on. He kept an eye on the door, instead.

"...My house?" Sibby asked, finally. She was watching the door as well. "The Wilkes's? Big, Old..."

"Like what? Like a period drama?" Charity asked, at once.

"Maybe you could come and stay." Sibby suggested, uncertainly. "That might be alright."

"It would be nice if we could all meet up over Christmas." Charity said, at once. I'm going to be so bored, back in Mugglesville."

"Is that a real place?" Orion asked, glancing away from the door. His serious expression made her laugh.

"No." She assured him. "Chester. I live in that big old city called Chester. Have you heard of that?"

"Yes." Orion said, although Charity thought he was probably thinking of Manchester. The Wizarding world seemed to make an actual effort to not teach wizards and witches about the wider-world world.

.

"How mad is it that Violet didn't know what a coat was?" Charity added.

"She was nearly right." Eric suggested.

"I didn't know what she meant." Orion offered. "You know a lot about everything, Sibby." She gave him a weary smile, that was not very reassuring. "...I'd like to all meet up, over Christmas." He pressed on, nervously. Although he would undoubtedly meet up with Eric, who lived minutes from his house. He would actually like to meet up with Sibby. He would like her to like to... Maybe she was still too upset to think about it, because of Evan Rosier's obnoxious girlfriend.

.

It started to snow, as the train ploughed through the countryside. The sun continued to shine. The old witch with the trolley creaked down the carriage and sold then pasties and cake. Sibby had gone so sleep, her head against the window. Charity came over to squeeze onto Eric's seat, so Orion made himself scarce, heading down the carriage to find his fellow Quidditch team-mates.

.

Charity was surprised to feel the train suddenly stopping. She was close to astonished that Platform nine and three quarters was sitting behind the window, wet from the unsettled snow that still whizzed about in the sunny air. Eric laughed, helping her lift down her trunk. Orion had vanished from the compartment and Sibby was still deeply asleep, the window steamed up in a halo where her head rested on it.

.

"I'll help you get your trunk off." Eric offered. "Then come back for Sibby's, if we can't see Orion."

"Thanks." Charity flashed him a pink cheeked smile, taking the far handle of her trunk. The platform was packed with anxious and excited parents and pupils. Violet Greengrass was embracing her mother, chattering excitedly by the door. She was still wearing Evan's fur trimmed cloak. The silver clasp, they both noticed at the same time, was a collapsed dog impaled on a knife. Charity raised her eyebrows and Eric shook his head and laughed.

.

"That's my dad!" He added, pointing to a handsome brown haired wizard, who looked very like him. Eric's dad was wearing a purple velvet suit, and a pocket watch big enough to make The White Rabbit proud. It was a funny outfit, that made Charity smile, although she would have smiled anyway, at the welcome that greeted them.

.

"You look so tall, son." Mr. Wood said, wrapping Eric up in a warm embrace.

"You look _so_ grown up!" His mum cooed, worming her way between them, to get a hold of her son.

"Missed you mum." Eric assured her. "Are we Muggling it?"

"Driving up with Geoff and Isabelle le Fey." His dad said, amused. "Who's your friend, Eric?" He studied Charity with unashamed delight, eyes sparkling.

"This is Charity Burbage." Eric said proudly, putting his arm around her waist.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Mr. Wood assured her, bowing. Mrs. Wood clasped her hands in welcome.

"What are you like, Eric!" She asked him, delighted. "And where are your parents, Charity? Do we know the Burbage's, Marcus?"

"They're Muggles." Charity said, head high. "I'm Muggle-born."

"Not Daniel Wilkes's cousin's sister's in-laws?" Marcus Wood asked her.

"Oh... Yes." Charity nodded, slightly surprised. "His cousin's, sisters, step daughter is my mum."

"Hardly Muggles!" He said, with enthusiasm. "Proud family, the Wiles's."

"My parents think they're Muggles." Charity said. "They won't have come onto the platform. I'd better find them. Hi Orion. Hope you have a good Christmas!"

"Thanks..." Orion said, frowning as he looked round them. "...Where's Sybie?"

.

"...On the train." Charity glanced back at it. The platform was less crowded now. She could see the horrible Morgan Rosier standing with a wizard that could only have been his father. They were both wearing long robes and sneering at the other happy excited chatter from the other students and their families around then.

.

Eric was explaining about Sibby being exhausted and that they'd left her to sleep, until they'd got the trunks off. He trailed off as Orion sprung through the crowd, shoving a first year into his parents and jumping a trunk. His willow wand was in his hand as he opened the carriage door and vanished inside.

.

The purposefulness, and the wand, had caught a number of people's attention and they paused, watching the carriage for a moment. Charity and Eric exchanged baffled glances. "...I'd better go and help him with that trunk?" Eric suggested uncertainly.


	12. Chapter 12

Orion had spent the journey talking Quidditch tactics, with his team mates Frankie and Rowan. As the train had rolled into the station, they had jumped off together and he'd gone to find his parents. Then he'd been accosted by Frankie's dad, who worked for the Ministry, in the best ever job of arranging sporting events. He had tickets to the Six nations Quidditch championship to give to Orion's dad. And then he'd seen Eric introducing Charity to his parents, with shameless enthusiasm, and then he'd realised that Sibby wasn't with them, which meant she had probably left the platform already, which meant he wouldn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to her, or find the nerve to ask her if she would like to meet up over Christmas.

.

But he had been looking out for her, while he'd been talking, so he thought he might have noticed her exit. He'd seen Violet, with her massive trunk, and her miserable family. And Morgan, looking down at everything, with his father. But he hadn't seen Evan Rosier, who wasn't with them. Eric scanned the platform, until he was as sure that Evan was unaccounted for as Sibby.

.

Evan had got back onto the train to find Sibby. As usual he had no idea what to say when he found her. But he had spent the journey feeling quite sickened by what Violet had said. Maybe because Sibby had looked so pale and completely incapable of laughing it off, or rising above it. But Violet was his girlfriend, and it had been his duty to back her up. And it was just words.

.

Violet had actually thought Sibby's yellow dress robes were very amusing. She had still been chortling about them with her friends over their final breakfast, before leaving for the Christmas Break. But she hadn't realised who had been in the yellow robes. When her friends had enlightened her she had stormed out of the hall, shoving Evan's hand off her as she passed him.

.

Evan hadn't even clarified what Violet had a problem with, because it wasn't like he'd mentioned Sibby to Violet. Orion le Fey had publicly warned Evan to keep away from Sibby, the night before the Ball. Evan's friend, Amycus, had retaliated by telling Orion, equally publicly, that Sibby couldn't keep herself away from Evan. That was probably why Violet had been pissed off. And why she'd caused the scene at the station. It wasn't anything Evan wouldn't have said himself, about someone else, to get a laugh out of his friends.

.

...He was probably going to say sorry. Again. She'd told him the Wilkes's had adopted her, in confidence. She hadn't asked him to keep it secret, but he wasn't an idiot. He though about it, as he went through the carriages, checking the empty compartments. Probably she wasn't a Mudblood, anyway. She was probably an illegitimate daughter... Maybe of Daniel Wilkes himself... Maybe one of his relatives... He had a younger brother, Evan thought. His father would know... Possibly he was Daniel's own daughter, and he was just adopting her to acknowledge her.

.

The train seemed empty. But Sibby was in one of the last compartments, her trunk still on the shelf above her, sound asleep, against the window. The rest of the train was completely silent. Evan frowned at her from the doorway, thinking about the yellow robes, and her head resting on Orion's shoulder, and making the Motion Potion, and the spying on the Quidditch field, and the mud on her cheek.

.

"...Sibby?" He said, stepping into the compartment. He was actually watching her breathing, intently. He couldn't see any breath coming out of her mouth, at all, and her skin looked cold and waxy. He snatched her shoulder and shook it. "Sibby! Wake up!" He demanded. He'd banged her head against the window, but she didn't open her eyes. "Sibby!" He screeched, and then he raised his hand and slapped her cheek, hard. "Anapneo!" He said, moving his wand through the air in a broken arc. The spell caused a sharp rush of wind and a silver crust to shimmer and crack over her skin, but she didn't wake up.

.

He had already turned back to the door, to get help, when Orion hit him in the face, knocking him flat to the floor. He hadn't even realised Orion was back on the train. He staggered to his feet, pushing Orion away as he jumped over him. Orion was also trying to shake and shout Sibby awake. Evan ignored him, staggering back to the door, for help.

.

"What have you done!" Orion screamed, his voice high with panic. He swung the doors closed with a swipe of his wand, locking them into the tiny compartment.

"Let me get help!" Evan snarled, wrenching at the closed door. "You stupid idiot!" Shouting for the door to reopen, with a swing of the yew wand. His will and focus easily over powered Orion's, and the doors swung free. The train was already swarming with wizards and he stepped back into the compartment to let them inside.

.

"He's done something to her!" Orion screeched, clutching Sibby's floppy hand.

"What have you done, boy?" Marcus Wood asked, turning from her limp body. Seeing it was Rosier's youngest son, that Orion still had his wand levelled on.

"...Nothing." Evan said. He was trying, suddenly, just to be calm. None of the wizards cramming into the carriage seemed remotely calm. Neither Daniel Wilkes or Orion's father were there, and Marcus Wood was panic stricken and seemed to upset to be able to make her better.


	13. Chapter 13

"So... What are you doing?" Morgan asked, making him jump. His brother was standing at Evan's side, calmly studying the frenzy of wizards working to revive Sibby.

"There's something wrong with her." Evan said, aware his words tumbled over each other, ten times as fast as his brothers lazy drawl.

"You don't say." Morgan offered, although he humoured his brother's obvious panic with a faint smile. "And you care, because?..." Evan looked round at him, and back at Sibby's limp body.

"Get father." He demanded, desperately. "Morg... Get him." Morgan pressed his lips together so that his sigh whistled from his nose. He shook his head before moving the tightly pressed wizards aside and stepping back into the sunlight.

.

Necro Rosier frowned at the press of wizards around him, as he entered the compartment. He considered his youngest son's pale face, before turning to the girl, slumped now, on the carriage floor, school robes thrown out like the wings of a shot crow, dolls face waxy white.

.

Necro took Marcus Wood's shoulder to move him firmly out of the way, giving his own wand space to move.

.

He pressed his eyes closed for a moment, to bring his focus to a burning centre on his hand, and swung the supple elm wand through the air. "Finite Incantium, Avada Aparecium Hexious! Expelliarmus Detritus!" He cut through the air, the wand blazing.

Light and warmth were sucked out of the air. Some hex, wretched like a hiccuped breath, choked free of Sibby's parted lips. A knot of black hairs, it twisted and coiled as it rose to meet the white hot heat of Necro's wand, then flamed into ash. .

It smelt like real burning hair. Sibby coughed, reaching out with her hands to try and find something to catch hold of, in the space in front of her. Necro watched her, searching her unguarded thoughts as she blinked him into focus. He looked back at his younger son pointedly, and cut a path out of the carriage.

.

Evan watched Marcus Wood and Orion helping her to sit up before he followed his father back onto the platform. Anxious parents watched them with open suspicion until they were through the dividing wall and plunged into Muggle London. The streets heaving with Muggles and pollution. The whine of electrical waves rung in air that stunk of the dirty gasses, vomited from the constant stream of passing cars. The sound was constant. Muggles everywhere. Evan was grateful to let it distract him as he followed his father and Morgan down the pavement, sweeping the throng into the road as they passed.

.

Necro headed straight into his office block. Same marble floor. Same metal lift. Same strange Muggle music. Same Muggle smell. 'Some of the students smell like Muggles.' Morgan said, obviously thinking about the synthetic stench as well. Their father nodded, without speaking or looking away from the metal wall. Evan glanced at him, uneasily. He wondering what his father had seen, sifting through Sibby's waking thoughts. He could tell that she had seen his resemblance in his father's face but he had no idea what his father made of that.


	14. Chapter 14

The lift released them onto the top floor and Necro opened the door with a wave of his wand. The air in the room was cool and still. Water rippled in a stone basin as Morgan closed the door. They both watched their father washing his hands, drying them on a silk cloth.

.

"Explain that to me." He suggested. Evan took a slow breath, gathering his thoughts.

"Her name's Sibby Wilkes..." He began.

"_Morgan_." Necro interrupted him. "Morgan, explain this to me."

Morgan also considered it for a moment before he spoke. "Her name _is _Sibby Wilkes." He concurred. "But she's not a Wilkes. She's a Mudblood orphan, he's taken in. She's quite strange."

.

"She's pretty." Necro said, watching them both, with a hint of a frown. Morgan glanced finally at his brother, before he dismissed it.

"No. She's not. Not really. She went to the Yule Ball with Geoffrey le Fey's son, Orion."

"Fascinating." Necro suggested, dryly. Morgan glanced at Evan again, before he continued.

"...She was nice to Evan." He said, "I think."

"And is that's all it takes?" Necro suggested, frowning at Evan once more. "Someone being _nice _to you, and you're best friends with filth?"

"No. She's actually nice to everyone, I think." Morgan told their father. "But Orion le Fey was annoyed that she was nice to Evan. He's an idiot. Orion upset Violet. She had a slagging match with Sibby, at the station..."

"She drew Violet into a 'slagging match' at the school station?" Necro demanded, his voice sharpening. Morgan nodded, watching, as thoughtful as his father usually was. "And what did you do about that?" Necro turned on Evan, who opened his mouth. He looking vastly more put on the spot than Morgan thought he needed to be.

.

"...He drew his wand on them." Morgan said, when Evan didn't. "We all did. The train came. He put that hex on her."

"Did you?" Necro asked.

"...I drew my wand at the station." Evan agreed. "But I didn't hex her. No."

"Did _you_?" Necro asked, turning back to his elder son.

"No..." Morgan said. He glanced at Evan again. "No... Evan did. And panicked a bit when he thought he'd killed her." He added, as if his reading of the situation was surely right. Necro looked back at Evan, to see if he would concur.

"I didn't do it." Evan said. "I would be expelled for murdering a Mudblood student."

.

Necro nodded, considering it carefully. Both his sons stood, waiting, although Morgan tried to catch Evan's eye, apparently still sure that he should confess to it, and that Necro wouldn't mind. Necro nodded, summoned his broom from the wall above the fire. Morgan and Evan both fetched theirs, as well.

.

The glowing embers in the fire grew still and black as Necro sucked the heat up from them, into his wand. He sent a burst of the red hot energy at the smooth glass doors out onto the balcony.

The city of London was starting to glittering. Snow still swirled in the evening air, deadening some of the noise pollution. They all gazed down at the sprawling metropolis in silence. And then, as silent as ghosts, they drifted into the icy air.


	15. Chapter 15

A perfunctory visit to St. Mungo's established that the hex had done no lasting damage, and still pale, Wilkes's driver escorted Sibby to his car. Orion and Eric stood in the icy backstreet, outside Mungo's grimy shop window, until the sleek green car had vanished around the corner. There silence said more than any words. Their parents stepped through the glass, still discussing it in low voices.

.

"Maybe it was a mistake." Geoff le Fey, suggested, using his wand to make his own car appear, green and gleaming, at the curb. "She seemed like an inoffensive young thing."

"How could that possibly be a mistake?" His wife asked, her voice high and strained.

"She could have done it to herself, practicing something?"

"She doesn't look the type to take Dark Arts." Eric's mother, Lilibet, pointed out. Geoff le Fey nodded.

"They'll all be taking that next term." He announced abruptly. "They're making it compulsory."

"They can't do that!" Lilibet exclaimed, shocked. "Parents will refuse."

"Albus is changing the name to '_Defence Against _The Dark Arts'" Geoff said, standing aside to let them all get into the spacious interior of his car. "Help yourself to tea.'

.

"...That won't stick." Marcus assured him. "It's hardly catchy. Who's going to teach that?"

"Still Delia Wormwood. I imagine the difference between Dark Arts, and 'The Defence' against them is drawn only in the mind of the student."

"And Dark Arts will be compulsory? There will be no opt out?" Lilibet asked.

"Would you have your son 'opt out'?" Geoff questioned, looking at her over the top of his purple glasses.

"Yes!" Lilibet said, with as much certainty as Eric said "_No_!"

"_No,_ I wouldn't opt out." Eric assured her. "While there are wizards like the Rosiers? The Death Eaters?"

"And you?" Geoff le Fey asked his own son. "Would you opt out?"

"No." Orion said. "Never." His father nodded, satisfied. He gestured for a house elf to cross the spacious interior of the car and serve them tea and cakes from a side table laden with treats and delicate crockery on a silvery tray, that almost slipped from the alarmed elf's hand, as the car took a sharp corner.

.

"I really think you should nail everything to the floorboards." Isabelle le Fey said, accepting a cup of tea and stirring it, delicately. "The chaise doesn't feel very safe."

"It's perfectly safe." Geoff le Fey assured her, frowning at the swinging chandelier. "Muggles drive them everywhere."

"I'd rather apparate." Isabelle assured them. "And you've all seen what that does to my hair." She chuckled.

.

"It's better to be careful." Marcus pointed out. "There is no harm in careful."

"We'll see." Geoff said. "We do need a dedicated owl for the car. I wonder if it would be possible to put a fireplace in that wall?"

"Use Eric's." Marcus suggested, getting up with a slight wobble, owing to the speed of the car. "He won't mind."

"Of course not." Eric said, jumping up as well, to open the cage for his dad.

"...It feels like a boat, I always think." Mrs. Wood said, watching Geoff filling a parchment at the small desk in the corner.

"It really does." Isabelle agreed. "There must be something we can do to stop the wobbling. I can't get any pictures to stay on the wall."

"Marcus has a fixing spell that will stick anything onto anything." Mrs. Wood offered.

"Even wallpaper comes off." Isabelle said, with a sigh. "I suppose it must compact at some point, when it's empty." She sighed, considering it. "We won't be able to keep and owl in here." She added. "I'm sure it's compacting, at night."

"It's night now." Geoff said, glancing up at her. "Perhaps we should be worried..."

.

Amused laughter rippled through the unnaturally spacious car. Eric went over to Orion, who was loitering by his owl's cage. "Are you alright?" He asked, stroking the barn owl's soft white feathers.

"No." Orion assured him. "I want to kill him. I've never wanted to hurt someone so much in my life."

"He could have killed her." Eric said. "Is your dad writing to Dumbledore?"

"I don't know." Orion glanced over at him and lifted his shoulders. "I hope so. He should be expelled. She could have died."


	16. Chapter 16

_How do you thank someone for saving your life, if they would rather have watch you die a slow lingering death?_

"You could send him flowers, and a box of chocolates?" Charity suggested. She had just been flung the length of the country on a Portkey to keep Sibby company. Her short black hair was poking out from her head like she'd been electrocuted. "...With poison in." She added, flashing her friend a sparkling smile. "That would say 'thanks' and 'see how you like it', in one neat package."

.

"_Keep it short and formal._" Sibby quoted Wilkes's command.

"His son hexed you and nearly killed you!" Charity exploded. "You don't owe him any thanks."

"Wilkes has told me to send thanks."

"Ask a house elf?" Charity suggested. "Please have house elves. A house elf is all I want in the world."

"I could ask a house elf." Sibby agreed, sitting up, and pushing the blankets away from her.

.

Sibby's bedroom had a four poster bed, made of carved wood and surrounded with thick blue curtains, that were tied back. It looked like a bit like an illustration from a fairytale book and a bit like a stately home, Charity had once been taken to when she'd been a normal kid at a normal primary school. Charity's bedroom still looked like a normal bedroom, of a slightly older kid. Sibby's room had three paintings on the wall that were clearly as alive as the ones at Hogwarts. Thankfully they all contained horses or ponies, or how would Sibby have been able to get changed? Charity was wearing jeans and a jumper. Sibby was wearing the same floor length night dresses that they wore at Hogwarts.

.

"Shep!..." Sibby called. She glanced at Charity before calling again. Charity was waiting for 'Shep' to appartate, but she burst into the room, laden down with an old-fashioned bed warmer, lots of blankets and a bowl of soup, all balanced precariously, hiding her bulbous head.

"So sorry, Miss Sibby." She tweeted, hurrying across the room and trying to get the soup from the top of the pile, and onto the table. "So sorry to keep you waiting. And you are lying in bed so needing me."

"Is that your house elf?" Charity demanded.

"No." Sibby said, lifting the soup onto the table, as Shep protested at her helping. "No. They're 's. He wants me to send an owl to Necro Rosier." She told the elf. "Do you know who that is, Shep?"

"Of course Miss. Sibby. You are feeling better, Miss. Sibby?"

"Much better." Sibby nodded. "But wants me to write and thank Mr. Rosier. Can you help me, Shep?"

The elf vanished with a sharp clap, reappearing a moment later with a parchment and a quill. "This is to write the letter on." The elf explained, briskly. "And this is to make the marks. With this ink." She slid a bottle of ink onto the floor and popped the cork free. Charity laughed.

"Thank you." Sibby said at once. "I know the basics of letter writing. I just wasn't sure what to say. What Daniel really wanted me to say."

"To be delivered by 's Owl, to the hand of Necro Rosier only." The elf intoned at once. "I, Sibby Wilkes, wish to convey my gratitude at his removal of the Wire Worm Hex, on the Hogwarts Express, on the last day of the autumn term. Signed Sibby Wilkes, indebted."

"You can't be indebted to the Rosiers!" Charity choked.

"It is just a formality, miss. Charity." The house elf assured them.

"He just wants me to send them a piece of parchment with the _Wilkes_ Crest on it?" Sibby asked, realising. "Signed 'Sibby _Wilkes_?"

"Oh yes, definitely." The house elf agreed at once.

"_In your face, Mr. Rosier!"_ Charity crowed, approvingly.


	17. Chapter 17

Christmas Eve arrived shrouded in grey mist. Charity and Sibby ate a wizardry breakfast of fried puffin eggs and hot buttered toast, with Mr. Wilkes.

.

Charity had finally seen her hair in one of the Wilkes's mirrors and had made such a fuss that Mr. Wilkes had ordered a house elf to Appartate with the two girls, to spend Christmas dinner with Charity's parents, which would be strange for Sibby, who hadn't had a proper Christmas since she'd been six. She had always found Christmas in the care home hideous. Like Valentines Day for the loveless. Wizards didn't know what Valentines Day was. They struggled enough with Christmas. Mr. Wilkes, childless for his entire adult life, had no idea how to celebrate Christmas. But Charity's parents were Muggle through and through. They had a plastic tree with fairy lights and tinsel. Presents beneath it carefully wrapped, topped with plastic bows. And a television churning out muddle films, the same year after year. And there would be a turkey with instant gravy and cranberry jelly still in the jar. And crackers that snapped and dumped tissue paper crowns and bad jokes, printed in china, on your laps. Everything, in fact, that Sibby had longed for, before the letter inviting her to attend Hogwarts had been followed by an adoption application from Mr. Wilkes. She didn't want to be adopted by non-magic people now, but she wanted to see that world, that she had longed for, for so so long.

.

Appartating had the same effect on Charity's immaculate silky bob as the portkey. She looked insane and spent a good hour soaking it in the bathroom, and attacking it with straightening irons and magic, while her little brother giggled inanely at her from a highchair, and owls appeared ominously on the window ledge waiting to be let in and deliver their official warnings for using magic in Muggledom.

.

The hair stayed mad. The Christmas was as real as Sibby had hoped. They ate Sara Lee Chocolate Gateaux with holly on, until they felt too sick to sleep. They lay in sleeping bags on Charity's bedroom floor, gazing up at the electric light and giggling, until Christmas Day became Boxing Day.

.

Boxing Day had lots of good telly and Charity's dad had a new racing game that was actually brilliant and they all played on together. They spent the evening eating boxes of Roses chocolates and Quality Street, and watching new Christmas DVDs. They both jumped, and laughed at themselves, as the little house elf, Shep, appeared with a bang in the corner of the room.

.

"I have come to take you home now, Miss, Sibby." Shep said, trying not to gaze around the Muggle room with her massive watery eyes.

"I'll see you at the Quidditch." Charity assured her. Sibby crept down the stairs to thank Charity's parents and say good bye to her baby brother. She waited for Shep to peer at herself in one of the big plastic baubles, and then hand in hand, flung like rag dolls through vast expanses of space, they appartated back into Mr. Wilkes's house.


	18. Chapter 18

Muggles had Christmas telly. Wizards had Quidditch. Charity and Sibby both suspected that wizards might also have televisions on the sly, but even Eric claimed not to. He said he'd spent Christmas Day watching his little brother and sister making up shows, and practicing magic that had nearly left the whole family in St. Mungo's. Orion, who was seriously excited about the Quidditch, didn't seem to have celebrated Christmas at all, although he'd brought Sibby a box of chocolate butterflies, and he also seemed delighted with the card Sibby had written for him.

.

They had met on a windy mountain top. To which they had driven in Wilkes's car, which was like a tardis inside. Eric and Orion had come together, with their entire families, all in Orion's dad's car. None of the wizards seemed to realize that Muggles didn't have whole living rooms in their cars, any more than they realize that Muggles didn't drive them up the sheer sides of mountains. They staggered out, complaining that their furniture had all been launched across the room, as the cars had climbed vertically up the final cliff-face. A lot of the witches and wizards looked like they too had been thrown about.

.

Evan, Morgan and their father arrived on broomsticks, gliding silently out of the air, cloaks billowing. Violet Greengrass flew in behind them, with her parents. They all looked cool and unruffled.

.

"Brooms are better." Charity concluded, irritated by their slick appearance and untroubled arrival

"Brooms are _not _better." Eric snapped with a surprising amount of feeling. "The Muggles have cameras everywhere. There are things called 'Saturn-lights' hanging above the clouds, watching everywhere..." He sighed, unhappily. "How clever will Necro think he's being when the Muggles have followed them back to their home?" He said quietly.

"I don't think Muggles are going to think broomsticks are any weirder than your cars." Charity said.

"Cars are discrete." Eric pointed out. "Uncomfortable, but discrete."

"Yes. Very discrete." Charity assured him, sarcastically. She went over to look at a wooden stall where a scowling witch was selling really nasty looking fried snacks. Eric chased after her, at once and Orion forced his eyes off the Rosiers. "...How are you feeling?" He asked Sibby, quietly.

"Like I've just been dragged up the side of a mountain, in a horse box full of loose furniture and hot tea." Sibby said.

"But you're fine? You've recovered?" She nodded, trying not to think about it.

.

"...Muggles don't serve tea in their cars, do they?" He added.

"Not when they're driving up the side of mountains." Sibby said, with a laugh. "I'm not a big fan of Quidditch." She added, watching the other wizards trooping about. It was snowing again, tiny solid flakes flying about them. "Will they cancel it if the snow gets bad enough?"

"They'll cancel it if any player receives a fatal injury. That's about it. And they won't." He added. "It will be fine. Six Nations is very friendly."

"Who are you supporting?" Sibby asked, pulling her woolen cloak tightly around herself. Orion tried hard not to frown at her.

"England." He said. "...Of course. Won't you be?"

"Oh, yes. I suppose so. If you want me to." Orion touched her hand, nervously.

"I'd like you to." He agreed.

.

They followed the trickle of wizards across the icy mountain top, dipping down into a plateau where three colossal Quidditch stadiums had been set up, each bigger than a football pitch and flanked by wooden stands, already full of excited witches and wizards. There were students from Hogwarts everywhere, greeting them excitedly and asking if they'd had good Christmases. Most of the wizards above school age were casting spells and the air was buzzing with noise, static and excitement.

.

"...Oh no!" Orion exclaimed, stopping short in front of a wooden notice board. "Stinking Toads! We've only drawn Wales!" Sibby smiled at him, trying not to laugh.

"And that's bad, because?" She asked. "...You think you won't beat Wales?"

"Well... I hope we will." Orion said, thinking about it, very intently. "...Wales usually do win." He admitted. "Or Scotland. They have a lot more space for flying and training. But Scotland have injured half their team. I was hoping we'd meet Wales in the final."

"How long is this going to go on for?" Sibby asked, her heart sinking.

"You'll wish it could go on forever, once it starts." Orion assured her, his eyes bright as he thought about it.

"Grown men hurting each other, to catch flying balls?" Sibby asked, as lightly as she could. She was thinking about Orion slamming his elbow into Evan's face, his jaw clenched, his face distorted by muscle-locked rage.

"It will be nice to be out together." Orion added, trying not to sound so embarrassed about it. "My parents want to meet you."

"That would be nice." Sibby lied.


	19. Chapter 19

The snow swirled in the air. Sibby had just been introduced to Geoff and Isabelle le Fey and to Eric's parents, Marcus and Lilibet. They were all very excited about the Quidditch. Sibby was apprehensive. She hated the violence of Quidditch as much as everyone else seemed to love it. Opposite them, in the centre of the Welsh stands, The Rosiers were also waiting for the game to start. Necro Rosier was frowning thoughtfully, at the world in general. Morgan was talking animatedly with one of his Slytherin team-mates. A Beater, Sibby thought, one of the massive ones that had threatened them, on the pitch at school. Like an ogre. And Evan was sneering across at the English stand. Not actually at her, she didn't think, but maybe at Orion and Eric. Sibby wasn't convinced that Evan had put the hex on her. She had felt ill before the incident on the platform. Maybe she just didn't want to believe that he had. She knew she didn't want to watch the Quidditch players smacking each other with their bats and balls, and elbows.

.

Once the Quidditch match started, Sibby thought she could have probably stripped naked and jumped up and down without anyone noticing. She told Orion she needed to find a toilet and he muttered something nonsensical without taking his eyes from the game. She squeezed through the throng of yelling wizards and witches, until she was free, and down on the wild, beautiful, mountain top. Sparse grass was edged with masses of shingle-like stones. Great chunks of grey rock, pointed jaggedly up at a grey sky. Tiny white flakes swirled in the air, like the snow in a snow globe, and a dry dusting swirled constantly on the ground. Behind her, the England and Welsh fans howled, screamed, and letting off noisy spells into the air. Some distance behind them, a similar roar shook the other two stadiums. Where Scotland and, she was presuming, Ireland were playing their matches. Against maybe France and... Spain? She tried to blank out the row, gazing into the vast expanse of snow-swirled sky, thinking how achingly beautiful it was.

.

She stumbled, jumping backwards, as Evan appeared in front of her. It was the first time she'd seen him since the hexing on the train. It was the first time she'd actually felt frightened of him. She knew she was staring at him like a startled rabbit.

.

She clutched her cloak tightly and hurried quickly in the other direction, head down.

.

"...Sibby!" Evan shouted, right behind her. He must have actually run to be that close and his voice sounded... wrong. Sibby didn't pause, throwing herself across the uneven ground. She didn't even know where the toilets were, and the snow suddenly seemed thicker, as it blew up into her face. "_Sibby!_" Evan snarled, anger hardening his voice. Without warning he dived forward, snatching for her arm and catching a handful of cloak.

.

"Go away!" Sibby yelled, her voice shockingly high-pitched. She left the cloak, already half slipped off her shoulders, in his grasp and half-ran blindly, away from him.

.

"_Stop_!" Evan yelled again, snatching his wand from beneath his robes, before dropping it and running at her, wrestling her to the ground.

.

Sibby screamed, the noise cutting out as her back hit the hard earth and her breath was knocked out of her lungs. She hit him, as hard as she could, clawing at his face and slamming her fists, and then a chunk of rock into his chest.

.

"Get off me! Get off me!" She screamed, trying again and again to force him away, to twist, to get free of him, which was so frighteningly impossible.

.

"_Listen to me_!" Evan screamed at her, struggling to grab her wrist and banging her hand hard against the ground to make her drop the stone. He was shaking her, and trying to make her look at him with a snatched handful of her hair. "_Stop fighting! Stop! You're going to kill yourself_!"

.

The ground ended. It just stopped. Half lost in the swirling snow, less than a meter from were they were sprawled, the grey ground finished, the earth they were on falling away into nothingness. A grey chasm, fatally deep. Sick rose in Sibby's throat. Her stomach felt punched in. She _would _have run straight over the cliff edge if he hadn't grabbed her... She had nearly shaken him off... A meter more and...

.

Evan stopped shouting as he realised she'd finally understood what he was saying. He loosening his grip on her wrist, panting for a moment, abover he face before he released the fist-full of hair and forced her clenched fingers loose from his shirt.

.

He stood up. Sibby was so frightened she couldn't stand at all. Her legs felt like the bones had vanished from them, and she was trying to take her weigh on stumps of jelly. She staggered over to a chunk of grey rock and sat on it.

.

Evan watched her, the wind blowing his hair and cloak. He looked how a wizard should look. He didn't need the hat. It was in his nature, his nurture, his blood. .

Ignoring her entirely, he retraced his steps, looking for his wand on the snowy ground.

.

Sibby pressed her hands over her eyes for a moment, but she felt dizzy and wanted to see she wasn't too close to the cliff edge. Evan had come back, her cloak folded in his arms, his wand in his hand. He looked down at her, snow swirling between them.

.

"...Thank you." She said, finally. Evan nodded, a frown narrowing his features. A loud roar came from the direction of the Qudditch pitches. Neither of them spoke again. Sibby didn't think she was ready to stand. She accepted her cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. Still Evan waited. She thought he was waiting for her to go, so he could get back to whatever he'd been doing, out of the stands.

.

"...I don't think I can stand up yet." She said finally. "You're missing the match." She hoped that was enough to get him to go. The wooden stands looked miles away, and she felt like she'd run a marathon. She wasn't looking forward to walking back. She wasn't going to be able to, until her legs stopped shaking and Evan looked to be going no where.


	20. Chapter 20

"Accio Broom!" Evan said, whipping his wand through the snow flakes. Sibby saw the broom rushing across the grey landscape until it was in his grasp. It still had the Slytherin Serpent twisted around the top of its handle. Evan was proud to play for his Quidditch team, and anxious to get back to the game, but apparently uneasy about leaving her to wander over a ravine or freeze to death. "I'll take you back to the stadium." He said, frowning at the broom. "Have you hurt yourself, or were you just... frightened?" He moved the horizontal broom to the side of the rock, in case she needed to limp onto it. He was also holding it still, or up, possibly. She had no idea. She had no idea how two people did ride on a broom, having only ever seen them on the Quidditch field. She didn't think Evan would actually want to hold her on the broom. Probably he needed to be at the front end, to drive it, control it. Maybe he didn't. Maybe it was mind control and her thoughts would make him crash. Evan finally stopped waiting for her and got on the broom himself, moving close to its tip, to give her as much space as possible behind him.

.

Brooms were insanity. How had it never occurred to her? It was like sitting on a pole. There was nothing to get a grip on, nothing to stop you swinging underneath and very, very uncomfortable on the bum. She tried to unhitch her tangled robes and swung to the side, so sharply that she turned the whole broom into a sheet of grey rock. Evan pulled back, flying low over the ground, back towards the stadiums.

.

Don't slide upside-down, don't slide upside down, Sibby repeated, as they drifted through the silence, a meter or so above the flat tree-less land. She was not going to fall off. She was not going to slide under the broom and spend the whole journey hanging, with her hair trailing along the ground.

.

She had adjusted her position to make her bottom slightly more comfortable. The ground slipped away from them, the snow globe snow danced. Her hair blew back in the breeze, and her lungs filled with cold clean air.

.

Evan stopped, against the stadium's massive wooden trunk. An owl flew down and landed on his shoulder, offering a leg. The letter, tied to the bird with a purple bow, was almost certainly a written warning, over his use of the Accio spell off school premises, and for flying a broom without a senior escort. She watched him open it, read it, and mutter another spell that ignited the paper. The owl studied him, with its big yellow eyes, before flapping off into the vast grey sky, presumably to collect a new letter for this offence as well. She wondered if she would get a letter, for being on the back of the broom.

.

The snow was sticking. She touched an icy crust, thick on the top of one of the jagged rocks. Evan lingered, but she didn't know what he was thinking. She should know, Divination was her best subject. She needed to climb back up the stand. Go and find Daniel and Orion. She had been gone a while, although she suspected they weren't going to have noticed. Evan interrupted her thoughts, clearing his throat. "...I didn't put that hex on you." He told her. "I know you all think I did."

"You just stopped me falling off a cliff." She said. "If you'd wanted to hurt me..."

"That would have killed you." Evan pointed out. Sibby considered the implications, in silence, before looking up at him. Evan looked away, in genuine embarrassment. "...I don't want to hurt you, either." He added, uneasily. Sibby laughed and Evan's cheeks coloured. "I should do." He assured her, bitterness hard in his voice. The laughter died in Sibby's chest. She could see his grey eyes narrowing further as she looked at him.

.

"I haven't done anything to you." She said, as calmly as she could. "Nothing that should make you want to hurt me."

"You're a Mudblood." Evan spat the word out, with the same bitterness, and then he took hold of her arm, holding her firmly as he lifted the broom back into the air.

.

Sibby snatched the narrow wooden pole, watching the ground shrinking away from them. "What are you doing!?" She yelled, failing to keep the panic out of her voice. Evan looked round at her, disgust twisting his features.

"I am not going to hurt you." He said, and then he swung the broom sharply away from the Quidditch stadiums, and back over the snow, much faster now.

.

She cursed as the ground dropped away and they shot out into the vast expanse of snowy, windy, sky, off the side of the mountain. She felt like they were hovering, the wind gusting snow from every blank direction, nothing beneath or above them, and then suddenly the mountain wall hurtled into view, and Evan swung the broom, curling them around the side of the jagged cliff-face and chasing a frozen river, down the mountain side, to lower land where sheep were nibbling at patches of short snow dusted grass.

.

The broom shot across the fields, so silent that rabbits sprung for cover only as they passed over their heads. Two horses raced them across a field, almost in reach, and then a real house sprung into view, with windows lit up with bright electric light, and a frozen see-saw, crusted with snow, in the garden beside it. Then a frozen lake, sliding and hissing beneath Evan's feet as he dropped low enough to skid along it. He stopped the broom in the very centre.


	21. Chapter 21

He stood up, lowering the broom until she was forced to step gingerly onto the ice. It held. They didn't plunge through it, to their frozen deaths. As he lifted the broom, it swept the thin layer of snow away, and she could see through a glass floor, to a green world and, unbelievably, a flash of some grey fish, vanishing away from them beneath the surface. She didn't move, in case they fell through, but she looked up at Evan, who was watching her; waiting.

.

Uncertainly she looked around. They were in a valley. She could see maybe three stone cottages in the distance, but everything else was trees and rocks. A red car, swung into view, cruising down a wet grey road that clung to the edge of the lake. They both watched its progress through the valley until it vanished back into the mountains.

.

The stillness returned. The snow danced. Some birds called loudly, very high above them. A tired looking Barn Owl flew down to perch on the tip of Evan's broom, offering its leg, and a second letter, tied with purple ribbon. Evan paused to open and read it, before crumpling it in his hand and dropping it onto the ice. The owl tilted its head, watching the breeze tumble the paper away from their feet, before flapping over to peck at it, and eventually carry it away. Evan looked back at Sibby again, waiting for some response to this.

.

"...What?" She asked him. He didn't reply. He still looked cross. She stared back around the valley and down at the ice beneath their feet. '...It's like Hogwarts." She said, finally, although this wasn't the actual lake by Hogwarts. It was a bit smaller, and there was no castle in sight. But it was unbelievably beautiful... assuming the ice wasn't about to crack, it was so beautiful.

.

Evan was holding his broom, his hair windswept and his pale cheeks coloured from the wind. But he still looked like he wanted to force her under the ice and drown her like some verminous kitten.

.

"Where are we?" She ventured.

"The Quidditch Stadiums are about four miles that way." He said, gesturing to her right.

"But there are people here." The car was long gone but the huddle of houses was still visible behind him. "Muggles." She corrected, for him. Evan nodded.

"There are Muggles _everywhere_." He said, angrily. "_Everywhere_, destroying _everything_. How long before this place is turned into a city like London or Manchester?" Sibby nodded. Evan waited. "...Well?" He demanded. "I am actually asking you. How long till the Satellites are in the air, filming every Quidditch match, every broom flight? How easy will it be to hide then? How soon before the Muggles control everything? How long before they have destroyed everything? How long will hiding and running away from them work for? There is nowhere left that the Muggles haven't touched, claimed, polluted, already."

.

Evan glared. Sibby stared at him, in shocked silence. Eventually he turned and walked away, across the ice. When she moved to follow him, she slipped straight over, banging her bum hard on the solid ice. Evan looked round, probably to see if she'd broken the surface. It was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn't. "...I don't know." She offered, weakly. Evan glared at her for a little while longer, before coming back and holding his hand out to lift her up. Sibby took it, sliding her feet carefully over the lethal surface.

.

"We'll fly." He said, removing her from his grip and setting the broom horizontal, so she could climb onto it. She noticed aeroplane trails on the grey sky above them, and electric wires stretched across the mountainside, as they glided away from the frozen lake. She hoped Evan hadn't seen them, or didn't know what the lines of cloud were.

.

"..._Evan_?" She shouted, the wind blowing her words away. "_Evan_! Do you really blame all that on me?" He heard, because he slowed the broom at bit. He glanced back at her. "Look where you're going!" She shouted at once. He turned back, but not quite fast enough to hide that he'd smiled, at the fright in her voice.

.

"...I could fly here on a moonless night!" He called back to her. And then he looked back round, as if to prove the point.

"Please watch where you're going!" Sibby implored him. "I've never been on a broom before!"

.

He arched upwards, as they rocketed towards the mountain side. Sibby let go with one hand, grabbing his flesh, as well as his clothes, in a death grip. Evan slowed down at once, leveling off on a snowy plateau, where the river had formed a frozen waterfall "...Sorry." She said, returning her voice to it's normal volume in the snowy silence. "...Please stop for a minute. I need to get a proper grip."

.

They stepped down onto the snow. Birds screeched, circling in the air alongside them, Their cries echoed off the rock faces. "This is where you live?" Sibby asked him. Evan shrugged. "And the Quidditch Stadiums? They're yours to?" He looked away again, to hide another smile.

"It's our land." He shrugged. "..And it would be great if they left the stadiums to practice in." He added, abruptly. "I don't imagine the Ministry would be too keen, though. In case they're spotted by Muggles."

"But you're allowed to fly without supervision on your own land, aren't you?" Sibby added, uncertainly. She was sure that was the school rule, next to the one about pupils not using magic off school premise. Evan nodded, thinking about it with a frown that made him look exactly like his dad.

"It's about the only place you are allowed to fly now, outside of the stadium. They're trying to ban that, as well. Because of the satellites."

.

"But I'm not a Muggle." Sibby said. "And I am not putting up the satellites." Evan nodded.

"I know." He agreed. Sibby nodded as well, uncertainly, watching him.

"I _am_ a Mudblood." She added, quietly. Evan frowned at her, unease in his grey eyes.

"...Muggle born." He said. "Half-blood probably."

"A Mud-blood." Sibby corrected. Evan weighed it up before he nodded a yes.


	22. Chapter 22

"I'll take you back." He said, quietly. He held the broom still for her to climb on. The wind seemed colder, and the snow had made their cloaks damp. The snow was thick and well-trodden by the throngs of wizards. The match had finished. Evan lowered the broom carefully to the ground, as far from the other wizards as he could, He snatched it up as soon as she had stepped clear of it. Sibby was looking for Orion, and then for Daniel Whitbread. Neither of whom were thankfully there to see her arrival on Evan's broom. She hurried back towards the England/Wales stadium, until she saw Eric, eating what looked like a bap filled with fried worms.

.

"Looking for you, Cass." He said, swallowing quickly, and hurrying over. "Are you alright?"

"Fine... What happens now?" Eric sighed as he shrugged.

"They catch their breath. Scots haven't finished playing the Cornish yet. We've got seats to see the final." Sibby nodded. Judging by his expression it was a safe bet that England had not won.

.

"Who will it be?" She asked, looking around for Orion again. "And what are you eating?"

"Fried worms." He said, taking another bite. "They're not bad. Want me to buy you one?"

"No." Sibby assured him, but she flashed him a smile. "Where's Orion?" She added, watching him chew.

"Looking for you." He assured her. "And it will probably be Ireland, although the Cornish have got a mental amount of points already."

"Because the Scottish team are all injured?" Eric nodded, waving at a couple of friends from school.

"That was really unlucky for them." He pointed out earnestly. "It's nice for the Cornish though..." He trailed off as Orion hurried over to them.

.

"Sorry I lost you." He said, giving her a quick hug. "Couldn't believe that result... How unlucky."

"Wales did play brilliantly." Frankie pointed out, coming over as well. "It was a cracking game."

"True." Orion agreed, letting go of her to buy two baps of worms. "It should have been the final... Don't see how they're going to be able to top that."

.

Eric and Orion's parents were talking to Daniel Whitbread, probably coming over to meet them. He lifted his hand, to acknowledge that he'd seen her, but he didn't seem to mind her disappearance. Orion gave her one of the wormy baps and she used it to warm her hand, watching him take a bite of his own. Then Daniel and Orion, and Eric's mum and dad, reached them. They were talking about the match as well. Sibby half listened, half studied the fried worms, leaving their grease on the soft white bap.

.

"...Good game, Necro." Orion's dad said, making her look round, uneasily. Necro Rosier was looking straight at her, thoughtfully.

"...Thank you." He turned to Geoff finally. "And you." He smiled a thin, unconvincing smile, his eyes roaming over all of them again.

"It was good weather for it, really." Eric's dad added, taking a bite from a worm bap he'd just paid for. "Firm ground."

"Snow's getting thicker now." Necro said, glancing at it for a moment.

"Your advantage, I'd have thought." Mr. Wood suggested. "Might make it last a while though." Necro Rosier nodded, just watching them all with that same thoughtfulness.

"New rules." He said, softly. Sibby was pretty sure Necro was not going to be a fan of any new rules, but he forced another polite smile for his contemporaries, before moving away to speak to someone else.

.

"What are the new rules?" Sibby asked. Orion was still frowning at Necro's back and it took him a minute to bring his attention around.

"Stadium has to be dismantled and rebuilt if game play continues, at each sunrise."

"Which is one of their less well thought out rules." Eric's dad admitted. "Can't see that one sticking long... Dusk would actually make more sense. It's not easy to spot the snitch in the dark, and the night could be spent moving to the new location for morning..."

"...Their seeker could find the snitch on a moonless night." Orion said.


	23. Chapter 23

Evan watched Sibby hurry away from him, across the snowy plateau. He knew his father was watching, but he waited until Sibby had reached a cluster of wizards, before he walked over. His father was not alone. Morgan, Amycus and Violet Greengrass, and a smattering of their families were standing with him. Evan didn't bother to loose his broom. Necro pressed the pads of his fingers together, watching Evan expressionlessly. He didn't say anything, although they were all silent, waiting for him to. Evan waited as well, although it was not his father that spoke. It was Violet, shoving her father's arm away, as she stormed across the slippery snow and belted Evan around the face.

.

"What is the matter with you, Evan!?" She demanded, making a dozen other wizards swing round to see what was going on.

"That's enough, Violet." Her father muttered at once, hurrying to catch her arm. "Don't making a scene."

"You disgust me!" Violet snarled, knocking her father off again. "Where have you been, Evan?! I can smell Mudblood filth all over you!"

"That is _enough_!" Mr Greengrass exploded, catching his daughters wrist as she lashed at Evan's face again.

.

"You are insulting me!" Evan assured her angrily. "What sort of wizard do you think I am?!"

"A pathetic, perverted, idiotic..." Mr Greengrass clamped his hand firmly over Violets mouth.

"Pull yourselves together." He warned them both, angrily. "We are in public."

"And you are publicly insulting me!" Evan snarled, still blazing, although Necro had also stepped forward, to put a warning hand on his son's shoulder. Violet tried to respond, still gagged by her fathers grip. "What do you think I have been doing?" Evan shook his fathers hand off him. He flashed a furious glare at the startled wizards, who stared back, then hurried away.

.

"Pull yourself together, Evan." Necro warned him, quietly. "The length of your absence was as reassuring as the manner of your return."

"..._I'm sorry_." Evan said, crossly. Violet's eyes continued to blaze angrily, above her father's hand. For a random moment, Evan fought the urge to laugh at her. He glanced around to make sure no one was still watching them. "You have insulted me." He added. "But... I didn't mean to worry you."

.

There was a pause while Violet shoved her father's hand away and moved her hair out of her face. "You," She assured him, crossly. Her breath whistling in her effort to keep it under control. "Are _pathetic_, Evan! You are so useless! You didn't even have the balls to put that hex on her yourself!"

"You'd already done it, for me." Evan pointed out, which he was reasonably certain of.

"_You_ should have done it!" Violet spat back. Do you think I want a husband who needs me to look after him!?"

"Maybe you should find yourself a wife, instead!" Evan shot back. Violet drew in her breath, speechless. Then she snatched forward to slap him again. Behind his back, Amycus stifled a shocked laugh, and Violet turned on him, before her eyes filled with tears and she flung herself away from them all, and ran off into the snow.

.

"I am so sorry, Icaris." Necro exclaimed, appalled. Violets father took a moment to look at him.

"Yes." He nodded. "Necro..." Evan got back on his broom and belted it up into the air, sweeping the edge of the cliff as he plunged over it. "I'm sorry too... Children."

"Yes." Necro nodded. "I'm sorry. I'll speak to him."

"I'll speak to Violet..." He laughed abruptly and genuine amusement replaced the shock on Necro's face. "They've always been like that." Mr Greengrass added.

"We were never like that." Necro said. Greengrass laughed again.

"We were a bit." He said. "Rhiannon was, anyway. I wouldn't have dared."

"Yes. I am sorry, Icaris." Necro said again.

"They're children." Icaris assured him. "They live to give us grey hairs. I'm sorry too."


	24. Chapter 24

"Thought you'd be here!" Amycus shouted, digging his feet into the snow, trying to stop his broom skidding across the frosty balcony and slamming into the wall beside Evan's window. The window was open and Evan's laughter broke the silence. Amycus stumbled to his feet, examining the splintered tip of the broom. "Bloody weather." He added, climbing into Evan's bedroom and looking around to see what he'd been doing.

.

Evan's broom was out on the floor, a pile of Black Maul Withies laid out carefully for repairs. The fire was blazing in the hearth, and Amycus went over to stand by it, propping his own broom up to dry, holding his hands up to the glorious heat. Behind him Evan used his wand to flick the window closed, and started on the broom again. "...Who's winning?" He asked, behind Amycus's back.

.

"Violet." Amycus said, softly. "You're father's going to Crusio you."

"She came back then?" Evan observed.

"No. She probably flew home. Icaris wasn't too bad. Which is lucky, because I don't think your father is up to grovelling, on your behalf."

"She slapped me round the face and said I wasn't man enough for her." Evan snapped, putting the broom down and getting his drink off the table. Amycus came over, using his wand to heat the jug of silky cinnamon milk until it steamed.

"You deserved it." He pointed out, sipping his drink and watching a second owl land on Evan's window ledge.

.

"Heard you laugh." Evan said, letting the owls in and tossing both warning letters into the fire.

"She slapped you in the face, Evan. You'd have laughed. It looks like the Mudblood had a go, as well." He nodded pointedly to Evan's face. In his grainy mirror Evan could see Violet's scarlet hand print had finally gone, but he still had small nail-made scratches, that Sibby must have put there when he'd wrestled her to the ground, at the edge of the ravine. He looked back at Amycus, who's wide, fire-lit, grin make slits of his eyes and put creases into his skin that made him look inhuman. He laughed at whatever he saw in Evan's expression.

.

"...Do you know what I hate about her?" Evan asked, taking his drink away across the room.

"Vi?" Amycus asked, uncertainly.

"_No_." Evan's pained tone made Amycus grin again.

"The Mudblood? I like to think so." Amycus sat down on the edge of Evan's bed, crossing his skinny legs. "So, did you have fun?" He asked.

"I hate her pathetic attempts to be nice." Evan continued. Amycus frowned, a genuine frown.

"...Why?" He asked. "Why hate that? If you didn't have the afternoon I'm imagining, please don't disillusion me."

"What sort of afternoon do you think I had?" Evan snapped, bringing his attention back to Amycus with a glare. Amycus laughed, again.

.

"Are you going to beat me with that?" He asked, nodding to the broom clenched in Evan's fist. "_An afternoon worth missing the Quidditch for_."

"I knew we'd win." Evan pointed out. "And I was planning on watching the final. We did win, didn't we?" Amycus nodded, grudgingly.

"Of course." He said. Evan didn't break a smile. He loosened his dirty shirt and chucked it onto the bed, taking the clean one, warming in front of the fire. Amycus raised a single eyebrow at the heavily bruise's Sibby's rock had left on Evan's chest, and they both jumped as one of the House Elves tapped sharply on the door.

.

"Your father wants you, Master Evan." It squeaked, creeping across the room to retrieve the discarded shirt.

"He's going to Crucio you." Amycus assured him again, retrieving his own broom and going back to the window. "And Evan, if those bruises are her 'pathetic attempts to be nice' to you, I'd hate to see her being mean."


	25. Chapter 25

Necro was standing on the far side of his desk, hands clasped behind his back, studying the snowy landscape beyond the window. Evan closed the door, carefully, and waited. His father took a while to turn around. Evan would say he looked moderately angry. He wasn't brandishing his wand. He studied Evan at great length, before pressing his fingers back against each other, this time in front of his chest. Evan knew it meant he was weighing something up, but he didn't fancy his chances at guessing what.

.

"...Today." Necro began, finally. "We were playing host to a hundred wizard houses. Why..." Long pause. "Why, Evan, could you not live up to my most basic and minimal expectations?... For one day." Evan waited, on the off chance that this question was rhetorical.

.

"...Because I'm useless?" He suggested, without a hint of remorse. "You didn't actually ask anything of me." He added, in his defense. Necro's eyes darkened.

.

"Asked anything of you?" He repeated. "I asked you to stand at my side, Evan. To enjoy watching us win the Six Nations. To enjoy the Quidditch, that is supposed to be a passion of yours. To not, and it did not occur to me that I needed to state this before hand, fight with Violet, like a drunken village Muggle."

.

"She's hard not to argue with." Evan finally broke the cold eye contact he'd kept on his father since he'd stepped into the room, and sighed at the fire. "I didn't want to do that." He pointed out. "I didn't want to get slapped in the face, and be publicly told-off. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, but I certainly embarrassed myself more."

.

"Yes. You did." Necro agreed. "You embarrassed both of us. Why were you on your broom?"

.

Evan scowled at the leaping flames, trying to see where to start. Necro watched him, and waited. "...She nearly fell into the ravine." He said, finally. "She didn't think she could walk. I brought her back, on my broom."

.

"Well" Necro considered it, finger pads back together, making an arch of his hands, again. "I would expect that of you." He decided. Evan nodded.

.

"I wouldn't leave a sheep fall into the ravine." He said, which brought Necro's smile back.

.

"No." He agreed. "Or a Muggle." He watched Evan press his lips together, uneasily, and raised his eyebrows.

.

"I'd leave a Muggle." Evan snapped. He frowned at his father, as if he might be denying him some correct answer. "...It is so wrong to have these Half-bloods in Hogwarts!" He concluded, angrily. "The whole world is so wrong, now!"

.

"Yes, it is." Necro agreed, thinking about it, wearily. "I will write to Albus again. But he will refuse to keep them out, Evan. Do you not think that there would be some sense in leaving these Half-breed Creations alone, off your own initiative?"

.

"That is what I am trying to do." Evan assured him, crossly. "And how was I meant to know that Daniel Wilkes's daughter would be some Muggle-born Mudblood!"

.

"How did you find that out?" Necro's asked. "Morgan said you told everyone."

.

"I told Amycus and Morgan." Evan scowled. "...She told me." He added. He frowned at Necro intently, until his father smiled again.

.

"Go on." He prompted, watching Evan's frown carefully.


	26. Chapter 26

Evan had never seen Sibby before the beginning of their third year. For his first two years at Hogwarts, the four houses had taken most of their lessons alone. On the occasions when they did team up, Slytherin was always placed with Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw with Hufflepuff. The only time Evan had any contact with Hufflepuffs was when they played Slytherin at Quidditch, and when they ate in the Great Hall, when all the houses kept to their own tables.

.

In his third year Professor Dumbledore had announced that the houses would rotate, so that in each lesson two different houses would be paired together. Necro, like most of the parents at the school, had complained, but Dumbledore had refused to listen. Evan had been sent to start his third year, taking Transfiguration in a class with Gryffindors, Divination with Ravenclaw, and Potions with Hufflepuff. Unsurprisingly this was total chaos.

.

Sibby was one of the girls that looked like she'd puke when they had to slice eyeballs, and winced when they dissected songbirds and bear cubs, to harvest ingredients for their potions. It was quite fun to watch. None of the Slytherin girls would have let themselves be seen being so pathetic. Some of the Hufflepuff boys were absolute wimps as well, refusing to add live Spiny Mice to their Rejuvenation Potions. Potions with Hufflepuff would make anyone feel superior. And watching the girls squirming like muggles was pretty funny too, although it almost too cringe-making to bare off the boys.

.

Griffindors and Slytherins had always been rivals. Evan didn't know if Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were as well. But now the cowardly Hufflepuffs hid behind Griffindors, and ganged up to support them on and off the Quidditch pitch. No one had any time for them. Lots of them were half-breeds and even mudbloods. Some of them weren't, but as Evan saw it, they had all been put in Hufflepuff for a reason.

.

Late in May, Morgan was thrown off his broom, in a Quidditch game, against Ravenclaw, and was stretchered up to the hospital wing with multiple broken bones. His skin was grey, when Evan managed to get out of the stands and to his side. The Matron, and Professor Slughorn, were both rushing about the bed, fast enough to suggest they were worried. Morgan, who was probably the bravest person Evan knew, had his eyes closed, his teeth pressed so tightly together that his lips were white, trying not to cry out, in pain. He didn't open his eyes when Evan assured him he was there, but simply snatched hold of his hand and crushed it against the metal side of the bed, so that Evan had to bite his own jaw closed, to not yell about that.

.

One of the girls that assisted the Matron was sponging Morgan's face, and wiping away the blood that trickled from the side of his mouth, the Potion Master was stirring some medicine up over a Bunsen in the corner, and the Matron was tapping at Morgan's broken ribs, muttering charms under her breath. "He really needs something for the pain." The assistant moaned, sponging away desperately.

"There's nothing broken that can't be fixed." Slughorn snapped, glancing up at Evan.

"Bones first." The Matron said, briskly. "Other side." And she moved the assistant out of the way so she could prod her wand at a snapped bone poking through the flesh of Morgan's left arm.

"I can get a Tincture of Vervain." The assistant cried.

"Get me some Newts Bile." Slughorn pointed to his bag, with the tip of his wand.

"He really needs something for the pain." The assistant all but sobbed.

"Send her out." Slughorn snapped, frowning at his potion. "He's a Slytherin." He snapped at Evan, as she left Morgan's side. "He can handle the pain."

.

The Matron snapped the bone back into place, with a crunch that made Morgan's breath hiss through his teeth, and caused him to twist Evan's hand so violently that he used his free one to try and break his brothers hold. The assistant took the Newts Bile and put it on the table next to Slughorn's Bunsen.

"Monkshood. Dried." He snapped, gesturing back to the chest. Monkshood was delivered, and the assistant went straight back, selected two vials and poured them both into a cup.

"For the pain." She put the cup on the cabinet beside the bed. "When you're ready." She added, to The Matron.

"Leave this room!" Slughorn snapped, angrily. "Ten points for presumption, from..."

"Hufflepuff." She said, and took herself out of the room.

Morgan hissed, through his gritted teeth, and unlocked his jaw to swallow as much of the tincture of Vervain as he could, before sliding back onto the pillows, like a corpse. Slughorn gave the Matron his potion and watched her administer it. And then they both left him to sleep and the Hospital wing was suddenly silent and empty.


	27. Chapter 27

"I think you've broken my hand." Evan said, quietly, trying to rub the pain out of it.

"I've broken everything." Morgan hissed, opening his eyes again. "We lost?"

"No... You were hurt enough to end play. We won on points." Evan said, looking down at him. "...You alright?"

"I can't move." Morgan scowled. "My mouth tastes like I've drunk Muggle piss. You're moaning like a little girl about your hand..."

"You're a right mess." Evan assured him. "Slughorn looked scared."

"Crucio couldn't hurt more than that." Morgan said, wearily.

.

"...You did handle it." Evan pointed out. Morgan nodded, looking around the room at the other empty beds. A lamp was lit on the Matrons desk, waiting for her return.

"What was in the potion?" Morgan asked, looking back at him. "Find out. And find out how long it will last."

Evan went over to the Matrons desk, looking through her notes, until the assistant reappeared, to order him away from it.

.

"You're not suppose to go through the Matrons Confidential Records." She informed, watching him.

"You don't say." Evan snapped, squinting at writing that looked like spiders dancing in ink. "Do I look like I care?"

"You look like you're worried about your brother." She said. Evan took his wand out, ready to throw her back if she approached the desk, and carried on looking for something that said what his brother had been given. "Can I help you?" She asked.

.

Evan stopped flicking at the book and turned around. The Nursing Assistant was only about his age. She was wearing a white apron and a little nurses hat. "What did you give him?" He asked, evenly. She considered the wand, still in his hand, thinking about it.

"A tincture of Monkshood and Vervain." She said. "For the pain. It won't do anything else." Evan glanced back at the bed, to see if Morgan had heard.

"Tell Amycus." He said. "Ask him how long it will last."

"Till the morning." The girl said. Evan had already turned for the door and he looked round, wondering if this was true. "Till morning." She said again. "You could rest." She added, looking back at the bed. "You will heal through the night, a lot. And someone will be here all night."

.

"Get my brother a chair." Morgan said, resting back on the pillows and closing his eyes. "He's staying here, if I need anything."

.

So Evan took the chair and went straight to sleep.

When he opened his eyes the Matron was poking at Morgan again. Dawn light was glaring through the high windows, but it was Morgan's voice that had woken him. "...Leave it! Now!" He was snarling. " For your own miserable sake! Accio wand!"

"_Well really!_" The Matron exploded, angrily. "You'll not be keeping that on my ward, Master Rosier!" And she stormed out, to fetch a teacher to disarm him.

.

"Go and get Amycus!" Morgan turned on him. "Tell him how to make that potion. And be quick, Evan!" Evan didn't. He went into the Matrons Room and found the Assistant, back in school uniform and robes.

"I need some of that potion." He explained. "I'll pay you for it."

"You have to ask The Matron." She pointed out.

"The Matron didn't give it to him!" Evan snapped. "Now or last night! She doesn't want him to have it, because he's Slytherin. And Slughorn thinks he should take the pain like a man..." He paused, angry at his own suggestion that Morgan might be unmanly. "...But that's stupid." He snapped. "Just make it. And I'll pay you... And hurry up."

.

"The Matron will give it to him." She said. She glanced at the bed, although Morgan was ignoring them, face turned to the wall. Evan was pretty certain this was his only course of action. It was Friday morning, so Amycus would be in their Divination class, at the top of the North Tower. He wouldn't even be able to get up there, before the Matron got back. The likelihood of him getting him out of the class and back here was slim enough, before Amycus even tried to make the potion. The Matron was going to be back imminently, and she had two sons in Gryffindor, who's lives, it would be fair to say, they had made a living hell. She wasn't going to give Morgan any pain relief. He leveled his wand on the girls face. "I said _now_!" He snarled.

.

He kept the wand raised as she ran over to the sink, taking a goblet and half filling it with water. "The cabinet is locked." She said. "Can you...?" Evan put the tip of the wand against the lock and blew it open. The crystal vials inside rattled and clattered, two of them falling forward and exploding on the floor. The assistant took the two vials she needed, swirled their entire contents into the cup and took it over to Morgan. Evan watched him drinking it, waiting to see if it would work, which mercifully it did, and then going back to the door, to see which Professors the Matron would bring. He had sorted it out very quickly, and he could see no sign of anyone yet.

.

Behind him, the Assistant was soaking the spilled liquids off the floor, with two separate clothes, trying to stop them mixing, and then carefully collecting the shattered pieces of crystal. Evan wondered why she didn't use her wand. She was presumably in serious trouble, and sweeping the mess away before a House Elf could do it, would make no difference. He'd said he'd pay her, but hadn't struck an agreement on what this was worth. The payment was not for the ingredients, which had never belonged to her. It was payment for the trouble this would cause.

.

"...Rosier?" She had stood up again, watching him warily. "Do you know how to re-close the cabinet?" It was so sensible that he was momentarily annoyed that it hadn't occurred to him. She _wasn't_ clearing up the mess, she was _concealing_ the evidence.

.

"That's hardly your style, is it, Gryffindor?" He pointed out, coming back to look at the twisted metal clasp. "Not very 'honourable'.

"Hufflepuff." She said, straightening the vials on the shelves. "And, if it's honourable to leave someone in pain, that would explain why I am not in Gryffindor." Evan smiled. He glanced back at the bed to see if Morgan was listening, but he was asleep.

"That's honour for you, Hufflepuff." He said, amused. _Hufflepuffs: not just stupid, clumsy and pathetic but honourless as well._


	28. Chapter 28

Then, he recognized her, from Potions. When they had treated Morgan's injuries, she had tried repeatedly, if pathetically, to make someone give him pain relief. Her expression had not been dis-similar to the one she'd used at the prospect of dropping squirming Spiny Mice into a bubbling cauldron. She hadn't helped the mice. But she had helped Morgan.

.

"They'll be back soon." She said, watching the door, nervously. He went over to the rubbish bin, keeping his hand as steady as he could, to put Repario on the smashed vials. He commanded them to return to the shape there were most familiar with, caught them mid-air, and set them next to the sink. He drew the two separate potions out of the two separate cloths, dripping them back into their containers, from the wand's tip. He tried hard not to smirk at her awe-filled expression as he put them back into the cabinet. Then he quickly filled up the empty Vervain and Monkshood vials with water and returned their lids.

"No." She said. Evan hesitated. He considered the look of determination on her little face, and then he put the bottles back into the cabinet. "No." She said, again. "You can't do that."

"And yet, I just have." Evan pointed out. "Stand back."

"No." She assured him, shaking her head. "No. You mustn't."

"Fine. But that door is going to smash your shoulder, when I close this." He didn't cast the spell, because there was a good chance that the cabinet door wouldn't smash her out of the way and successfully close afterwards. There was a slim chance it would tip up, smashing everything inside. "Get out of the way, Hufflepuff." He snapped, instead. "You'll be in as much trouble as I will, if they come back now. More probably, because no one is going to expel me. And you're meant to be keeping me away from all this stuff."

"I don't care." She assured him, although her expression said otherwise. "...If you put those vials back in there." She said, her voice trembling. "Then someone, in as much agony as your brother, will be given nothing for their pain but stale water." Evan smiled at her.

"They weren't going to give my brother anything for the pain." Evan pointed out. "So, I don't care."

"But imagine if someone had already done this." She said, at once. "And that was what your brother had been given. What is to say it won't be your brother again next time? Or you."

"That didn't happen." Evan pointed out. "And on the off chance that it does happen to be me on the next stretcher up here, I'll make a mental note to demand the real stuff."

"And if it's your brother? If it's one of your friends?"

"How's this for an idea. I'll tell my friends, and my brother, and we can have a good laugh about it. And, just as an idea, why don't you mention it to your friends as well. And then you can all try your best-ests to remember, in case you ever happen to be up here, on a stretcher."

"And if it's someone else?" She asked him heartfeltly, ignoring the obvious mockery.

"Maybe you could tell the school, one student at a time." He suggested. "Get out of the way, before The Matron gets back."

"...No." She said.

.

"You are going to get in trouble over this!" Evan exploded. "Get out of the way!" He snatched her arm, yanked her clear, and snapped the cabinet shut. "Although you're too stupid to realise it," He assured her. "I have just done you a big favour. Go, wait in that room you were in." He watched her go, before going back over to the bed to see if Morgan was still alright, which he was. Unconcious, his wand drop to the sheet beside him. He wasted a few minutes wondering if he should take it, before he ran across the ward and into the back room.

.

"If you even consider telling The Matron!" He snarled, leveling his wand on her. "I will Crusio you, until you can't remember you own name!" She was sitting on a narrow wooden chair, which she'd nearly fallen off, clutching her school robes to her chest. "...So don't." He finished, softly. "Do you understand me?" She nodded, watching the corner of the floor. Evan nodded. "And you'll keep your mouth shut?" There was a pause that grew longer, and then longer. "Are you actually stupid enough to think I'm not serious?" Evan asked her, quietly.

"I think you filled tincture vials with tap water." She murmured at the floor. "They could be used in any number of potions. It could kill someone. Or prevent their recovery."

"It won't." Evan assured her. "The Matron will probably see it's not quite right at some point, and bin it. Or she'll use it in a painkilling draft, see it doesn't work, and try something else."

"You hope." She said, bitterly.

.

"No. _I _don't care." He assured her. "You can hope it. Now go away... _Imperio_!" He let the curse streak out of his wand, and jar into her down-turned head, watching the fear melt out of her body, with a mixture of shock and relief.

.

"...Go to whatever lesson you've got next." He said. "And then the next one, and the next one... And tell no one about this..." He followed her slowly through the ward and watched her head out into the corridor, and then he went back to Morgan's bed, put his brothers wand on the cabinet, and waited for the Matron's return.


End file.
